Curriculum vitae

Cv by Tuomas Pyrhönen, the 7 th March, 2025

Doctor of music, Tuomas Pyrhönen is nowadays among the most active Finnish concert organists. He has studied at the Sibelius-Academy in Helsinki obtaining his bachelor of church music exam in 1994 and A-exam (organ diploma) in 1996, studying organ as professor Kari Jussila's student. Immediately after that he studied at the Stuttgart Hochschule fûr Musik und Darstellende Kunst with professor Ludger Lohmann achieving his "Final artistic exam" there in summer 1998. Between September 2010 and November 2015 Tuomas Pyrhönen has studied for his doctoral degree at his alma mater Sibelius Academy Finnish contemporary organ music as his subject and Jouko Linjama as his focus composer. Mr Pyrhönen studied privately organ improvisation with Anders Bondeman in Stockholm.

Pyrhönen has played his premiere concert at the Kallio church in Helsinki in December 1998. As organist he has performed in many European countries, in Armenia, New Zealand, United States and Mexico. The most important venues for his concerts have been the Riga cathedral, Notre-Dame de Paris, St Thomas`Anglican church, New York City and Basilica Antiqua de Guadalupe, Mexico City. He has also performed at the cathedrals of Graz, Zagreb, Bialystok. Galway and Roskilde, at the St Gioacchino ai Prati -church in Rome, at the Laurentskerk, Rotterdam, at the Oscar´s church in Stockholm, at the Marktkirche Wiesbaden, at the Catholic cathedral in Moscow, at the Polotsk Organ festival in Belorussia, at the Krasnodar organ hall in Russia, at the St Casimir church in Vilnius, at the Kiev organ hall, at the Boston Trinity church, at the Komitas concert hall in Yerevan, Armenia, at the St Teresa church in Guadalajara, Mexico and at the Town hall in Dunedin, New Zealand. Tuomas Pyrhönen has improvised music for the German silent film classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in February, 2025.

Tuomas Pyrhönen likes contemporary music very much. He has also transcribed piano and orchestral works for organ. Moreover he regularly performs basic repertoire and seldom heard organ gems regardless the era or style of music and also improvises with pleasure as well. Pyrhönen has recorded four cd's, among others a cd containing organ works by Peteris Vasks recorded at the Riga cathedral. He has also recorded innumerable times for the Finnish broadcasting company Yle.

Tuomas Pyrhönen has worked in Joensuu parish as a church musician since February, 2002. In this work he has invited many Finnish and foreign organists to play a concert at the Joensuu church and visited their venues by playing concerts. He has also worked as organ teacher and music critic. His favorite pastimes are reading classic literature, seeing films, travelling and languages.