Kristiina Mäkimattila was born at Alastaro in southwest Finland. She studied at the prestigious Conservatory in nearby Tampere with Raija Roivanen, with whom she stills maintains close personal and artistic ties, and at the Cologne’s College of Music with Rudolf Bautz. On top of this, she worked intensively with Anna Reynolds and attended master classes given by Herbert Brauer, Hans Hilsdorf, Birgit Nilsson and Kim Borg.
Her first engagement, as a lyric mezzo-soprano, took her to Freiburg im Breisgau where she appeared as Kristiina Matti under the baton of Donald Runnicles. Subsequently, she became associated with the Vogtland-Theater Plauen and the Landestheater Magdeburg.
Her operatic repertoire ranges from Prince Heswin in Telemann’s “Emma und Eginhard” through Smeton in Donizetti’s “Anna Bolena”, Nicklausse in Offenbach’s “Les contes d’Hoffmann” and Hansel to Wagner’s Fricka (“Rheingold”, “Walküre”) and the Dryad in Richard Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos”. The dream of a lifetime came true in June 2001 when she was given the chance to perform the title role of Tchaikovsky’s “The Maid of Orleans” at Berlin’s Philharmonie.
Kristiina Mäkimattila has been a member of the Rundfunkchor Berlin since April 1998. Here she is regularly given solo parts to perform. In May 2005 she will be heard in Lars Scheibner’s staging of the “Sealed Angel”, a "Russian liturgy" by Rodion Shchedrin.
She is very glad that she can work with world-famous conductors and orchestras at the highest possible level, notably Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
Besides she is closely associated with two ensembles specializing in baroque music: the Telemann-Consort Magdeburg led by her husband, the Magdeburg violinist Wolfgang Hasleder, which performs unpublished oratorios and cantatas by Georg Philipp Telemann on the basis of source material, and the Cammermusik Potsdam. Kristiina Mäkimattila also devotes much time to the art song. Her repertory is very wide, with Jean Sibelius holding a special place in her affections, but includes even Berio’s “Folk-Songs”. Performances of Schoenberg’s “Pierrot lunaire” are also indelibly impressed on her mind.
Kristiina Mäkimattila owes a great deal to her teachers. A dedicated educator, she began at an early stage to share her knowledge and her experience with the up-and-coming generation of singers. Up to the birth of her son in May 2002 she held vocal training courses at the Otto von Guericke University in Magdeburg. Currently, she holds a teaching post at the Hanns Eisler College of Music.
