Guitarist Vesa Lassila

Vesa Lassila is a Finnish guitarist born in 1973 and grew up in the city of Ylivieska. He began playing the guitar at the age of twelve and began lessons under the tutelage of Jorma Styng. Lassila studied classical guitar in Helsinki and Oulu Conservatory under the guidance of Timo Korhonen, Ismo Eskelinen, and Ilkka Virta. At Piteå Music Högskola, Sweden, Lassila studied under Jan Olof Ericsson. He has also taken part in master classes held by Oscar Ghiglia, Jukka Savijoki, and Roberto Aussel.

Since 1998 Lassila has worked as a guitar professor at the Institute of Music in Ylivieska, located in northern Finland.

In my recording Water Through Ice, which is released by Divine Art Recordings Ltd., I will play an alto guitar built by Keijo Korelin in 2009. The instrument has 8-strings and fretboard scale is shorter than a standard modern guitar, which allows for more possibilities for arranging Bach’s music. Two additional strings in the bass register enable an octave wider sound transmission and a shorter fingerboard allows for better range in the operation of the left fingerboard hand. The instrument is a so-called transposing instrument, so it plays a minor third higher than the notated pitch. The alto guitar is therefore equivalent in these characteristics to baroque instruments such as the alto lute or theorbo, while being a guitar in other characteristics. I also use lute strings in my guitar to obtain lute kind of character in sound and lighter rich articulation in rhythm figures.

Other instruments used by Lassila are guitars built by Brian Cohen 1993 and Ilkka Virta 1999.