Jaakko Kortekangas was 23 when, having studied with Matti Lehtinen at the Sibelius Academy, he set off for the International Opera Studio in Zurich. He has appeared in most European countries, the United States and the Far East. Before returning to Finland in 1999 and becoming a freelancer, he spent ten years as a member of the Freiburg Opera ensemble in Germany. In addition to the German opera houses he has sung at the operas in Copenhagen, Genoa, Stockholm, Zurich and elsewhere. Winner of the Lappeenranta Singing Competition in 1989, Kortekangas has also been heard regularly in Finland, at the Finnish National Opera, on the Finnish radio and television, and as the soloist with many orchestras. He has made numerous radio and commercial recordings and sung in such televised operas as Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Gift of the Magi and Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny. He has a repertoire of over eighty rôles.