Artistic Director of the Vancouver Chamber Choir since 2019, Kari Turunen is a versatile performer and continues to play an important role in the choral music scene in his native Finland as an artistic director, educator and administrator. He has toured extensively across Europe and Asia as a conductor, performer, clinician and adjudicator and is the recipient of numerous international prizes with the choral ensembles he has directed including the professional early music ensembles Ensemble Petraloysio and I Dodici, with which he continues to work.
He was a founding member of Lumen Valo. In 2008, he was named Finnish Choral Conductor of the Year and is the recipient of numerous grants from Finnish and Finnish-Swedish Cultural Foundations. In addition to his artistic activities, Dr. Turunen has been active in festival administration. He was the Artistic Director of the 2022 Finnish-Swedish Song Celebration and of the Aurore Renaissance Festival in Helsinki from 2015-2020. He was also Chair of the Finnish Choral Directors’ Association (FCDA) from 1997-2018. This year he takes on the Artistic Directorship of the 2023 Tampere Vocal Music Festival. Kari Turunen holds a doctorate in early music performance practice from the University of the Arts, Helsinki, and an MA in choral conducting from the Sibelius Academy.