Soloist Elina Vahala was championed in her earliest years by the orchestra’s former chief conductor Osmo Vanska, and has enjoyed a stellar career, but was making her debut with the SSO. She is an authoritative and poised player … full of expressiveness….Vahala’s playing was never showy, but her cadenzas were absolutely compelling and of a piece with the shaping of a demanding work that she and Lintu structured beautifully from start to finish. Glasgow concertgoers … would be unlikely to hear this music played better than it was by these Finns with the home team. - Keith Bruce, The Herald, 4th November 2022
Read MoreAdded to the mix was the formidable American-born Finnish violinist Elina Vähälä, whose unshakeable, coruscating presence in the Shostakovich injected fire, obstinacy, tenderness and pathos into a complex, at times harrowing, late work….Such a vital concoction of responses filled this riveting performance… a piquancy arising from delicate interchanges between the soloist and orchestra principals…But it was in the finale that Vähälä found every opportunity to showcase her combative energy and stimulating musicality. Like a mischievous child, she threw truculent pronouncements at the orchestra…. (Conductor) Lintu played both fellow protagonist and artful arbiter in this electrifying trading of insults, forging a synthesis that held things together while maintained the inexorable swagger. - Ken Walton, VoxCarnyx, 4th November 2022
Read More“There are few concertos that test the full range of a violinist’s artistry the way the Szymanowski does—and there are few violinists who ace that test with the subtle confidence of Elina Vähälä. Whether she’s singing out the music’s stratospheric lyricism, deftly navigating its mercurial shifts in emotional terrain, teasing out its subtle timbral demands, harnessing its long range rhetoric, knocking out the motoric Stravinsky-isms, or keeping the phrases from sagging under the weight of their florid ornamentation, Vähälä has the measure of this endlessly intricate score—as well as the technical brilliance necessary to toss it off without strain.”
Fanfare Magazine (Peter J. Rabinowitz), July/August 2019
Read More“Her control of phrasing, and especially the ends of phrases provided evidence of a thoughtful musician who has all the technical accomplishment and confidence she needs to project her thoughts. Her intonation is sure and her tone fine, perfectly formed. In her highly musical performance of the Brahms’s D minor sonata her delicacy of sound and the rythm in the third movement was marvelous, as was the drive in the finale. She breathed each movement, and even the whole sonata, as one.”
New York Times
Read More“Elina Vähälä played Corigliano's concerto in Turku in brilliantly glorious manner, in ecstasy of striking mastery, that was regulated by bright, polished control.”
Helsingin Sanomat
Read More“The fluent, stylish performance by the gifted Finnish violinist Elina Vahala, in her Chicago debut, revealed a musician whose brilliant technique is matched by abundant spirit, sensitivity and imagination.”
Chicago Tribune
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