The violinist Maria Puusaari is a contemporary music activist best known for her work with the Uusinta Ensemble and the Uusinta String Quartet. She has commissioned and premiered a large number of works. Puusaari has performed at various festivals and concert series in Europe and the United States. She teaches contemporary music regularly to composers and musicians in Finland as well as abroad. In 2019, Puusaari became the artistic director of the Uuden Musiikin Lokakuu Contemporary Music Festival in Oulu, Finland.

 

Apart from contemporary music, Puusaari plays classical chamber music in her own recitals, with the Airo String Quartet as well as with the Fräki-Puusaari-Rysä piano trio. She combines music and poetry in projects with the poet Suvi Valli. Apart from western art music, she has co-operated with the flamenco dancer Katja Lundén and the Beninese musician and composer Noël Saïzonou.

 

Since 2002, Puusaari is a member of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Puusaari has recorded solo and chamber works for both CD and the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE). She has made several TV transmissions of orchestral and chamber music for YLE television.

Maria Puusaari started her studies at the Oulu Conservatoire under Anne Siira and Lara Lev, and continued them with Merit Palas at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. She graduated from the Sibelius Academy in 2003 with the highest possible grades. Puusaari complemented her studies in Budapest under Vilmos Szabadi, and in Paris under Hae-Sun Kang. As of 2017, Puusaari is doing artistic doctoral studies on contemporary violin music at the Sibelius Academy under the supervision of Professor Mieko Kanno.