The Orchestra

»I actually wasn’t at all keen on becoming an orchestral musician. But the double-bass repertoire is very small if you don’t play in an orchestra: only Dittersdorf and Koussevitzky. You don’t have contact with the great composers. In the long run, that isn’t enough. And now I’m completely happy being an orchestral musician.«

When a youth orchestra was one double-bass player short, the teacher asked Janne Saksala, who already played piano and electric bass, if he wanted to take a crack at this instrument. He said yes immediately and with great enthusiasm. In 1981 he began double-bass studies at the music school of his native Helsinki, continuing from 1986 at the Berlin Hochschule der Künste.

Janne Saksala is not only a passionate orchestral musician, he is also in demand as a soloist, chamber-music player and teacher at renowned musical institutions, including the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. He collaborates regularly with composers and has given the premieres of numerous new works. In addition, Janne Saksala was until 2006 a member of the Berlin Philharmonic Jazz Group founded in summer 1999. His favourite free-time activities are reading, cooking and sailing.