Sibbe Live!: Sibelius and Italian colleagues
25.02.2026 19:00 – 20:15
Standard price 20€ +order fee (from 1,50 € + 0,65 % of the order)
Pensioner/student/child 15€ +order fee (from 1,50 € + 0,65 % of the order)
Lecture-concert in collaboration with the Dante Alighieri Society in Turku
Giulia Ermirio, viola; Petri Kirkkomäki, baritone; Folke Gräsbeck, compère and piano
Sibelius and his Italian colleagues is a concert lecture presented by pianist Folke Gräsbeck on February 25, 2026, at the Sibelius Museum in Turku. Many people are interested in which colleagues Sibelius actually met during his lifetime. Of the Italian composers, we know that he at least had the opportunity to meet Pietro Mascagni and Ottorino Respighi.
We are pleased to present the Italian violist Giulia Ermirio. After the death of her father, Federico Ermirio (1950–2022), Giulia Ermirio has continued as artistic director of the North Italian Sibelius Festival Golfo del Tigullio e Riviera. Her father Federico founded the festival in 2015 in connection with the 150th anniversary of Sibelius’s birth. Giulia Ermirio, together with baritone Petri Kirkkomäki and Folke Gräsbeck, will perform music by Paolo Tosti, Ottorino Respighi, and Pietro Mascagni – as well as by Sibelius. Giulia Ermirio will also speak about her father’s work as a composer.
Giulia Ermirio graduated first as a violinist and later as a violist from the Conservatorio Antonio Vivaldi in Alessandria. Her teachers included M. Bianchi and G. Mosca. In addition, she earned a degree in painting techniques at the L’Accademia Linguistica di Belle Arti in Genoa. She later furthered her studies in viola and chamber music with Kate Hamilton in Minnesota, USA (Concordia College Moorhead), where she also completed courses in orchestral performance.
Ermirio’s career includes numerous freelance performances as a soloist as well as a chamber and orchestral musician. She performs regularly in Italy and abroad. Recent appearances include the Grumo Festival in the Alps, Sibelius Festival Golfo del Tigullio e Riviera, the Da Vinci Baroque Festival, the Viotti Festival, and the Amiata Piano Festival.
Petri Kirkkomäki is a baritone specializing in chamber vocal music. He studied classical singing and piano at the Helsinki Conservatory. He is currently continuing his vocal studies under the guidance of Professor Irina Gavrilovic in Vienna and Helsinki. He has participated in numerous masterclasses in classical singing with teachers including Margareta Brandt, Johanna Rusanen-Kartano, Mika Kares, and Robert Holl.
His classical vocal repertoire includes songs and song cycles by Italian, French, and German composers. Works by Finnish composers such as Sibelius, Kuula, and Merikanto also hold a special place for him. In addition to Finland, he has performed in Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, England, Italy, and Croatia.
Petri Kirkkomäki is also actively involved in administrative roles within the field of classical music. Since 2012, he has served as Executive Director of the annual Sibelius in Korpo Festival, and he is Chairman of the Board of the Helsinki Music Centre Choir, in which he also sings.
Folke Gräsbeck won the Maj Lind Competition at the age of 17, while still in the final stages of his studies at the Turku Conservatory under the guidance of Tarmo Huovinen. He pursued further studies in London as a private pupil of Maria Curcio-Diamand. He served as permanent accompanist lecturer at the Sibelius Academy from 1985 to 2017, received his Master of Music degree in 1997, and his Doctorate in Music in 2008.
Folke Gräsbeck has performed over 400 works by Jean Sibelius (excluding sketches and fragments), including 92 world premieres. Twenty-four of his recordings are included in BIS Records’ international series The Sibelius Edition. This repertoire comprises, among others, the piano quintet, piano quartets, piano trios, the complete cello/piano and solo piano works, as well as more than 50 solo songs. The solo piano music alone filled ten CDs and was described by Fanfare magazine (USA) as:
“Sibelius’s output for solo piano will likely never again be recorded as comprehensively or as well.”
In 2024, he was awarded the Pro Finlandia Medal by President of the Republic Alexander Stubb.
He made his debut as an orchestral soloist with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra in 1969 and in Helsinki with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1971 under Okko Kamu. Folke Gräsbeck has performed more than 30 different piano concertos, most frequently Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (in Finland, Russia, Belarus, Germany, Ukraine, among others).
He has appeared in numerous European countries as well as in Japan, USA, Mexico, Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and China, including the Shanghai International Festival in 2017.
Image: James Carroll Beckwith (1852–1917), sketch of Rapallo, Italy, 7 October 1900.