Tiila Kangas started playing the violin at the age of 7 in her home town of Kokkola, and switched to viola when she was 15. She later studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, obtaining a Master's degree in 2005, at the Edsberg Music Institute in Sweden and the Royal College of Music in London, where she received a Master of Music degree in Chamber Music Studies in 2000.
Tiila Kangas is a founder member of the Tempera Quartet and Artistic Director of the Katrina Chamber Music Festival in the Åland Islands. She was assistant principal viola of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra before joining the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra in 2008.
Tiila Kangas plays a Felice Guadagnini viola of 1856, on loan from the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Laura Kokko studied the violin with Lennart Helling and Juha-Pekka Vikman at the Turku University of Applied Sciences, qualifying as a music teacher in 2002. She then continued her studies under Vilmos Szabadi at the Liszt Academy in Budapest and obtained a Master’s degree in music in 2004. She also studied at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole with Pavel Vernikov, Ilya Grubert and Alexander Vinnitsky in 2001-2002 and has attended numerous masterclasses, with Yair Kless, Mark Lubotsky, Ana Chumachenko and others.
An active chamber musician, Laura Kokko won the Leo Weiner Prize in the International Leo Weiner Chamber Music Competition in Budapest with pianist Kaisa Rönkkö in 2004. During the 2004/05 season she was co-leader of the second violins in the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra.
As of autumn 2005 Laura Kokkohas been a member of the second violins in the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. She also belongs to the Lahti Chamber Orchestra and the Camerata Finlandia.
Laura Kokko is Artistic Director of the concert series held in connection with the Volter Kilpi at Kustavi literary week.
