Nana Raitaluoto

Lieksa-born Nana Raitaluoto graduated from the Sibelius Academy with a master’s degree in music performance  (Viola Diploma 2000) and completed her postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London (Postgraduate Performance Diploma) with excellent qualifications. Raitaluoto has worked in many professional orchestras since 1998. In Finland, first in the Orchestra of the Finnish National Opera, then in the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, then abroad, e.g. in the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Raitaluoto has been the principal viola of the Vaasa City Orchestra since 2008. Prior to the professional orchestras, she played, for example, as the first Finn in the European Union Youth Orchestra in 1995.

Raitaluoto was a finalist and received a special prize in the Nordic Viola Competition in 2001 and won the Max Reger Viola Competition in 2002 at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 2002, she also received the LSO Promise Award: musicians from the London Symphony Orchestra unanimously selected her as the Most Promising Musician of the musicians selected to the LSO String Experience Scheme.