Rune Furøy Johansen
Rune Furøy Johansen (1990) Started his musical studies with euphonium in the young talents program in the Norwegian academy of music in oslo under Sverre Olsrud from 2008-2009 continued studies in university of Stavanger with conducting. Rune was the first student to complete the masters program in conducting in the University of Stavanger with Morten Schelderup Wensberg, Trond Korsgård and Peter Ettrup Larsen as his teachers. During his studies he has also participated in numerous masterclasses.
Rune made it to the finals of Dirigentløftet international conductors competition in June 2019 with the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, and with that marked himself as one of Norways most up and coming young conductors. Rune has had the pleasure of working with some world class musicians, that includes for example violinist Eldbjørg Hemsing as a soloist, a number of times. Rune has conducted most of Norways military bands in concert and is currently holding the position as the chief conductor of Insimul sinfonietta in Stavanger.
He also has a long experience from high level school bands, amateur wind bands, brass bands and orchestras. Rune has been teaching both in Norway and abroad, and from summer 2021 he will be teaching in the Young Conductors Program for the Norwegian Band Federation (NMF). Rune also covered Digital Conductors Studies (digital conducting programs in the University of Stavanger) in his bachelors degree thesis.
Risto Sojakka
Risto Sojakka (1988) started and his childhood musical studies with piano and later on moved on to study music professionally in the degree programs of piano performance, conducting and choir conducting in the University of Applied Sciences in Jyväskylä, Finland.
He went on to study conducting in the University of Arts, Sibelius-Academy in Helsinki and graduated with with Master's degree in Music after his diploma concert in 2019. Sojakka completed his student exchange in the University of Stavanger, Norway studying conducting. He has taken part in numerous international masterclasses with among others David Zinnman, Osmo Vänskä, Jorma Panula, Ole Kristian Ruud, Trond Korsgård, Christian Ehwald and Douglas Bostock. Sojakka has also participated in many international conducting competitions.