Päivi Ekroth

Biography

Päivi Ekroth is a Finnish-born classical pianist whose versatility as an artist has taken her from solo and chamber music performances to serving as a choral accompanist and a vocal coach for opera productions. Music of the Romantic era is often at the center of her solo recitals, but she has performed an extensive amount of solo and chamber music covering a wide variety of repertoire with strings, winds and brass as well as choral, operatic and lied repertoire. Her recent collaborations have included performances with soprano Deborah Voigt and flutist Sir James Galway. She has worked as a Collaborative Pianist at the University of Notre Dame since 2004.  

Ms. Ekroth began taking piano lessons at the age of 11, and was already performing with orchestras in Finland soon after. She has performed in Finland, Estonia, Italy, Germany, China, New Zealand and the United States appearing at festivals such as the Ruhr Keyboard Festival, Settimane Musicali di Stresa e del Lago Maggiore, the Mikkeli Music Festival, the New Jersey Symphony's Rachmaninoff Festival, the Music Academy of the West, the Ravinia Festival and the Irving S. Gilmore International Keyboard Festival as part of the “Rising Stars” series broadcast on the National Public Radio (NPR).  She performs regularly at Notre Dame’s various venues, and other local performances have included large-scale solo recitals in the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center as well as a solo engagement with the South Bend Symphony in 2014. 

Päivi has called South Bend her home since 1996, when she joined the world-renowned Alexander Toradze Piano Studio at Indiana University South Bend. While studying there she earned a Master’s degree and an Artist Diploma in piano performance and also served on the piano faculty. She was awarded a Performer’s certificate in recognition of performance excellence in piano by the Division of the Arts at Indiana University South Bend. Ms. Ekroth also holds a Master’s degree from the University of Notre Dame as well as Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Sibelius-Academy, Finland, where she studied with Sirkka Harjunmaa and Matti Raekallio. 

Päivi Ekroth has been a recipient of numerous awards from organizations such as The Arts Council of Kymi, The Arts Council of Finland, The Alfred Kordelin Foundation and The Finnish Cultural Foundation.