One of the most prominent basses of our times was born in Finland. Matti Salminen received his musical education in his home town Turku, at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki as well as in Italy and Germany.  

Singing at the ensemble of  the Cologne Opera from 1972-1980, Matti Salminen has been engaged at the Zurich Opera since 1984. He is holding guest engagements with the companies of Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Helsinki and Barcelona and has been singing in the world’s leading Opera houses including Paris National Opera, the New York Metropolitan, Chicago and Los Angeles, to name but a few. For over thirty years until the late nineties he has been performing every summer at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, and at the Bayreuth Festival he has sung regularly between 1976 and 1988. An impressive number of audio and video (TV) recordings are documenting his career.

As a concert singer, Matti Salminen has performed worldwide, together with the most renowned conductors and orchestras. Besides all main parts in the operas of Mozart, Wagner and Verdi, his repertoire includes leading bass roles from russian operas, such as Boris Godunow, Iwan Chowansky, Iwan Susanin, among others. He has performed Aulis Sallinen’s King Lear in a world premiere at the Finnish National Opera (2000), as well as Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Rasputin which was composed especially for him and premiered in 2003.