Kari Kriikku is a Finnish classical clarinetist. He studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and later with Alan Hacker in England and with Leon Russianoff and Charles Neidich in the USA. An extremely sensitive player with a seemingly flawless command of his instrument, Kriikku is undoubtedly one of the world's foremost clarinetists. His recordings of the concertos of Carl Maria von Weber and Bernhard Crusell have received worldwide acclaim. In 2006, his recording of Magnus Lindberg's clarinet concerto won both BBC Music Magazine's award and the Gramophone Award. Concentrating on contemporary music, Kriikku is Scandinavia's leading interpreter of works for the clarinet by composers such as Magnus Lindberg, Vinko Globokar, Kaija Saariaho, Jukka Tiensuu, Jouni Kaipainen, Kimmo Hakola, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Pawel Szymanski, Eero H�meenniemi, Olli Koskelin and Usko Meril�inen. He has performed Tiensuu's clarinet concerto PURO over 30 times. Kari Kriikku is a founding member of the Avanti! chamber orchestra and has served as the ensemble's artistic director since 1998. [More at Wikipedia]

January 1st, 1960 in (Age 64)