Saimi Ester Kortelainen is a violinist and multi-instrumentalist with roots both in Estonia and Finland. In her music she is focused on combining virtuosity, storytelling, different genres and musical disciplines into her own unique language of performance.

From a very early age, Saimi has taken part of international masterclasses and festivals around the world and collaborated and received guidance from renowned artists such as Daniel Rowland, Hagai Shaham, Marianna Shirinyan, Alexander Zemtsov, Kolja Blacher, Philippe Graffin, Ingolf Turban, Stephan Picard, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Serguei Azizian, Florian Donderer and many more.

Deeply passionate about innovation in classical music performance, she actively performs with Kristjan Järvi and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic, an orchestra which plays exclusively by heart.

Together they have toured most of the best concert halls in Europe including the Philharmonie Berlin, Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Queen Elizabeth Hall in Antwerp, KKL Luzern, Herkules Hall in Munich. In collaboration with cellist Urban Megušar and violinist Oskar Longyka, she is a founding member of Trio Lumi, a progressive folk music trio, where she also performs as a singer and plays traditional folk instruments like the overtone flute and jaw harp. They self-released their debut album “Tere Tere” in January 2021. She is also the founding member of Ames Quartet - an Oslo based string quartet focusing on both classical repertoire and new compositions.

Saimi is currently finishing her studies at the Norwegian Academy of Music in the Master's programme with Individual Concentration (FRIMA, violin class of Henning Kraggerud), where her focus is finding virtuosity in being a multi-instrumentalist and curating performances around that. Prior to moving to Oslo, she studied with Prof. Eszter Haffner for three years at the Kunstuniversität Graz, Austria.

Moreover, Saimi is a big enthusiast of languages, handicraft and hiking. In the spring-summer of 2016 she studied violin making with luthier Leho Ugandi (Estonia/Finland) and restored an old violin. She is fluent in 5 languages.