About us

• Jouko Harjanne and Touko Lundell - trumpet

• Jussi Vuorinen - trombone

• Ville Hiilivirta - french horn

• Miika Jämsä - tuba

Musicians

Elisa Korhonen is a singer, musician and music pedagogue from Lieksa. Graduated a Master of Music degree in the Music Education department at the Sibelius Academy, the singer has performed in many different types of musical productions and concerts. In addition to her studies, Elisa performs and represents as a soloist in, for example, the Kuopio-based Trio Hulluttavat band, the Helsinki-based Party-band EETU and the progressive heavy band Tether. In addition to singing at this year's Secret Agent 007 in Lieksa and the Bohemian Brass Queen concerts, as well as the 2025 BrassAbba concert, Elisa has also worked as a festival assistant at Lieksa's Brass Week since 2017.

Jouko Harjanne studied the trumpet with Raimo Sarmas at the Tampere Conservatoire and continued after graduating with Henri Adelbrecht and Timofei Dokshitser. Between 1978 and 1984, Harjanne was alternate lead trumpeter with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra. 1984 – 2024 Harjanne served as a principal trumpet of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Helsinki.

Harjanne has played chamber music in many brass and chamber ensembles, including the Finnish Brass Ensemble and the Brass Septet Imperial.

Jouko Harjanne's international career has been enhanced by many competition successes, the most important being second place in the Prague Spring Trumpet Series in 1987, and first place in the Ellsworth Smith Trumpet Competition, organised by the International Trumpet Guild in 1990. In 1989 he was presented with the Brass Player of the Year award at the Lieksa Brass Week, Finland's most important brass event. Harjanne is now the artistic director of the festival. He has also been much in demand as a player in international brass events. In 1997 Jouko was nominated as an honorary member of the Finnish Trumpet Guild.

Harjanne's solo performances abroad have extended as far as Russia, Japan, Republic of Korea and the USA, as well as Scandinavia and other parts of Europe. He has been a jury member of the numerous international trumpet competitions for example ARD-Munich, Maurice Andre Trumpet Competition, Budapest International Trumpet Competition, Porcia, Prague Spring and naturally Lieksa Brass Week competitions.

Harjanne's career received an additional boost by his performing and recording in England with soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa in December 1994, and by his performance, to great success, of Rodion Schedrin's new trumpet concertos European premiere in Moscow in autumn 1995. The professional music press has ranked Harjanne among the elite class of international soloists.

Harjanne has made over 35 (39) solo recordings. In addition to recording the standard repertoire, Harjanne has gained a reputation for the recording of what are considered the trumpet's most difficult works (e.g. the Zimmermann, Gruner, Nagao, Schedrin and Jolivet concertos). In addition to his recordings, he has performed in numerous productions for radio and TV.

Jouko Harjanne has held a number of master classes in Finland and abroad. During years 2012-2020 Harjanne was appointed as a Guest Professor of the Senzoku Gakuen College of Music. In 2012 he was nominated as a Brass Ambassador of the Lieksa city.

Jouko Harjanne plays Bach Stradivarius Bb and C trumpets.

Touko Lundell, who studied trumpet at the Tampere Conservatory, has been the principal trumpet of the Finnish National Opera Orchestra since 1985 and the Savonlinna Opera Festival Orchestra since 1986. He has also worked as a trumpet teacher at, among others, the Sibelius Academy and the Pirkanmaa University of Applied Sciences. He has played in many Finnish professional orchestras and performs as a soloist and chamber musician both in Finland and abroad. Lundell won the first international trumpet competition of the Lieksa Brass Week in 1999.

Jussi Vuorinen (b. 1976) is a trombonist originally from Tampere, Finland. He began playing the trombone at the age of nine. Already in his youth, performed in various jazz, reggae, and other rhythm music ensembles, as well as in musical theatre productions in Tampere.

His growing interest in orchestral music led him to Helsinki to study at the Sibelius Academy in 1994. Soon after, he began performing with several symphony orchestras across Finland.

Since 2004, Vuorinen has served as bass trombonist of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, and from 2016 to 2022 he also held the position of co-principal trombonist.

Alongside his orchestral vacancy, rhythm music has remained an important part of his artistic career. Vuorinen composes, records, and produces music at his own studio called JV Sound Cave. His music has been featured in advertisements, YouTube productions, and in the Finnish feature film Hyväveli (2022). He has also appeared on several film soundtracks, including Sisu 2.

Vuorinen has collaborated with several notable Finnish artists, including Emilia Sisco, Paleface, and Kauko Röyhkä.

His achievements include second prize at the National Brass Competition in Lahti in 1994, as well as first prize at the International Bass Trombone Competition organized by the International Trombone Association in the United States in 2002. In 2003, Lieksa Brass Week awarded him the "Brass Player of the Year" distinction.

Ville Hiilivirta (born 1984) is a Finnish horn player. He has been playing the horn since he was nine years old. He can also play the piano a little, but not as well as he would like. Hiilivirta works as pribcipal horn in the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

Hiilivirta's favorite composers are Brahms, Strauss, Mahler, Debussy, Ravel, Puccini, Ligeti and Messiaen. At home, however, he prefers to listen to American jazz from the 1950s and 60s. Hiilivirta lives in a detached house in Puistola, Helsinki. He has a wife (a pianist) and a dog (an American Cockerspaniel) and a son from a previous marriage. The son plays the trumpet. Hiilivirta enjoys cooking (especially on the charcoal grill), tinkering around the house and jigsaw puzzles. He would like to read more quality literature, but he mostly sticks to detective stories.

In addition to his regular work, Hiilivirta is the principal horn of the Savonlinna Opera Festival Orchestra and the chamber orchestra Avanti!, and plays chamber music in several ensembles, including Duo Kärkkäinen Hiilivirta, the Helsinki Chamber Soloists, and as a member of his newest ensemble, Kolibri Brass.

Miika Jämsä has worked in the Guard Band since 2003, currently as a soloist. In addition to his main job, he assists in symphony orchestras and performs with several different ensembles. Jämsä has premiered tuba concertos, solo works and chamber music. He studied at the Sibelius Academy, graduating with a Master of Music in 2008. Jämsä won the Lahti National Wind Competition in tuba B-series (1997) and A-series (2000). He was among the top three tubists at the Aeolus International Competition for Wind Instruments in Düsseldorf (2007). The silver medal he achieved at the Lieksa International Tuba Competition in 2006 was turned into gold in July 2013. He has been awarded Military Musician of the Year in 2006 and Hamina Tattoo Musician of the Year in 2014.

Petri Piiparinen has been playing percussion instruments for over 28 years. He graduated from the Sibelius Academy in 2021.

As a freelance musician, Petri has played in many orchestras and ensembles during his career, such as the RSO, HKO, Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Estonian Festival Orchestra, Estonian National Opera "Estonia", Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the Animato Foundation Orchestra of Switzerland. He has led the Estonian Dixieland Band for over ten years and has been the drummer of the Estonian Defence Forces Big Band and the Raffaele Kohler Swing Band in Milan for many years. He has also participated in percussion courses with Peter Erskine, Dennis Chambers and Indonesian gamelan music.

Currently, Petri works as the principal percussion of the Finnish National Opera Orchestra and, from 2023, as the principal percussion of the Avanti Chamber Orchestra. He also was a band director and drummer of Estonian Dixieland Band in 2015-2025.