Roland Pöntinen

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Roland Peter Pöntinen (born 4th May 1963, Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish pianist.

He is the son of a Finnish-speaking father, a native of the Russian district of Ingria (near Leningrad) who emigrated from the Soviet Union to Sweden in 1945. He studied at the Adolf Fredrik Music School and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm with Gunnar Hallhagen, then with Menahem Pressler, György Sebok and Elizabeth Leonskaya at Indiana University at Bloomington, Indiana, USA.

He made his debut in 1981 with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and has since then performed with major orchestras in Europe, USA, Korea, South-America, Australia and New Zealand. He has worked with conductors Myung-Whun Chung, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Leif Segerstam, Evgeny Svetlanov, Franz Welser-Möst and David Zinman amongst others. He has performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra as well as appearances in London Proms where he has played both the Grieg Piano Concerto and the Ligeti Piano Concerto.

Pöntinen's solo record debut was a recital of Russian piano music on the BIS Records label in 1984. He has since made over 50 records as soloist, accompanist and with orchestra.