Lunchtime Music - Improvised Encounters

Cantor and Master of Music Teemu Suominen is a broad-minded and challenging musician who is no stranger to the different genres and tones of church music. He graduated with a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music from the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. In addition, Suominen graduated as a church musician in 2019 and as a music pedagogue in 2022 from Oulu University of Applied Sciences, majoring in organ playing and organ pedagogy. Teemu Suominen's own musical expression is close to late romantic and impressionist French music. Improvisation in this style is also one of his strengths and one of his favorite tools in the work of a cantor.  

Suominen's specialization at the Sibelius Academy was organ improvisation and organ playing, in which he completed his A-levels in 2023. Suominen is also an influential figure in the field of Finnish gospel music. His studies have been supported by, among others, the Helmi Vallius and Selim Eskelin foundations. Suominen has worked as a cantor in, among others, the Espoo Cathedral Parish and the Finnish Parish of Kokkola. He currently works as a cantor in the Turku Katariina Parish.

Katja Mäkiö, a Master of Music and music pedagogue (AMK), works as a cantor in the Tampere Cathedral Parish. Katja has performed extensively as an instrumentalist and sung as a viola soloist in several church music works, including W.A. Mozart's Requiem, J.S. Bach's St. John Passion, Mass in B minor and G.F. Handel's Messiah oratorio. He has studied organ playing, choral conducting and singing at, among others, the Sibelius Academy, the Lübeck College of Music and the Metropolia University of Applied Sciences. He has studied singing under, among others, Sirkka Haavisto, Aulikki Eerola and Ulla Raiskio.

Mäkiö has, among others, worked as a choral conducting instructor at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki and is the voice director of the alto section of the national Finnish Cantor Choir Chorus Cantorum Finlandiae and a viola singer in the professional chamber choir Tampere Cappella.