Ilpo Laspas

Ilpo Laspas (born 1984) completed his doctoral studies at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki in 2016. During his doctoral studies, he specialized in Berlin under the guidance of professors Paolo Crivellaro and Leo van Doeselaar (organ) and Mitzi Meyerson (harpsichord). His doctoral studies and artistic work were supported by grants from the Finnish Cultural Foundation, both for one and three years.

Laspas has achieved success in several competitions, including second prize and the audience prize in the international Johann Sebastian Bach Harpsichord Competition in Leipzig in 2006, and second prize in the organ category of the same competition in 2008. He has been chosen as the Young Artist of the Year by Vantaa Baroque in 2006, Pori Organ in 2009, Turku Cathedral in 2009, and the Lahti International Organ Week in 2010. Laspas received a scholarship from the Pro Musica Foundation in 2014.

He has recorded organ music by Aimo Känkänen in 2015 and, together with accordion artist Markku Lepistö, historic 19th-century accordion repertoire with piano and harpsichord accompaniment in 2021.

Laspas regularly performs as a soloist and chamber musician in Finland and abroad. One of his recent major projects involved arranging and performing all the orchestral parts of Wagner’s operas Parsifal, Der Ring des Nibelungen, and Tristan und Isolde on the organ, along with concert versions featuring singers and occasionally a few instrumentalists at the Eurajoki Bel Canto Festival. Parsifal was performed in 2020, the four-part Nibelungen cycle in 2021 and 2022, and Tristan und Isolde in spring 2023, also in Helsinki.

He also served as an organist in Teatro Productions’ staged version of Joonas Kokkonen’s opera The Last Temptations, with piano, organ, and percussion accompaniment, performed at Joensuu Church and Aholansaari, Nilsiä in 2022.

Ilpo Laspas will be performing in the concert “King, Preacher, and Peasant” at Leppävirta Church on July 27 at 19:00.