Biography

Soprano Meeri Pulakka’s versatile talent spans from early to contemporary music, and she is equally at home both on the operatic stage as well as in chamber music settings. Pulakka has appeared as soloist with the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, the Finnish Baroque Orchestra (FiBO), Barocco Boreale, the Finnish Chamber Orchestra, the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, and Uusinta Ensemble, working with conductors such as Juha Kangas, Sakari Oramo and Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Her operatic roles include Vitellia in W. A. Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, Cleopatra in G. F. Händel’s Giulio Cesare, Madame Euterpova in G. C. Menotti’s Help! Help! The Globolinks! and Hebe in J-P Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes, among others.

Meeri Pulakka is in especially high demand as a performer and premierer of contemporary music, owing to her notably musical and precise work that stems from extensive violin and singing studies started at an early age by the ’Finnish folk music capital’ of Kaustinen. In her debut concert at the Young Artists of the Winter concert series (Helsinki Music Centre, 2019) she performed works by Jarkko Hartikainen, György Kurtág, Enno Poppe, Philippe Leroux and Erik Bergman. Pulakka’s other engagements with the music of our time include the role of Girl in Riikka Talvitie’s radio opera Queen of the Cold Land (premiered in 2017), Luciano Berio’s Sequenza III and Luigi Nono’s La fabbrica illuminata (Kallio New Music Days), Kaija Saariaho’s Lonh, Enno Poppe’s Wespe, Outi Tarkiainen’s Into the Woodland Silence (UML festival Oulu), Minna Leinonen’s Shom (Brücken festival), Olli Kortekangas’ One Night Stand (role of Kami, 2011), concert at the Villa Lante in Rome (Nuovi Spazi Musicali), Sebastian Hilli’s Arachne (New Music Theatre / Showcase 2016 Pietarsaari) as well as her enthusiastic work bringing young composers’ new works to life (Ears Open society, Creative Dialogue 2014 Santa Fé, the enoa network / Helsinki Festival 2016).

In June 2018, Meeri Pulakka graduated as Master of Music (with distinction) at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki, focusing on Lied and Oratorio singing. In fall 2017, she finished her Master of Arts degree in opera singing (with distinction) at the Universität für Musik and darstellende Kunst in Vienna.