Rantala, Iiro - Potsdam (LP)

Iiro Rantala plays the piano with "emotional magnetism and musical intelligence"; he has "virtuosic improvisational skills capable of a vast idiomatic and emotional range." (Downbeat)

This praise from an American magazine review of the Finnish pianist's third and latest solo album recorded in the ACT studio, "My Finnish Calendar" (2019), sums up the astonishing versatility that those familiar with his playing might almost take for granted. The 2016 JTI Jazz Prize mention in Trier also aptly describes the way in which audiences take him to their hearts: "Rantala can sweep listeners off their feet; he can be a clown and a magician, a charmer and a virtuoso, a rebel and a humorist." This is the emotional and stylistic versatility that Rantala brings to his live solo concerts.