Laura Mikkola has studied at the Sibelius Academy, the Curtis Institute of Music and the Jacobs School of Music. A laureate of several competitions, she won Second Prize and the audience prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition (1995), and First Prize in the Ravel (1988), Maj Lind (1992) and Unisa (1994) Competitions. She has been a soloist with such orchestras as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Radio Sinfonie Orchester Frankfurt, Washington National Symphony Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Cairo Symphony Orchestra, Opéra Orchestre National de Montpellier and Münchner Philharmoniker. She has premiered works by Rautavaara, Saariaho, Salonen and Tüür, among others. In 2017, she gave the Finnish premiere of the concerto In Seven Days by Thomas Adès. Laura Mikkola has recorded 15 albums; her CD of Rautavaara’s first concerto was selected as Editor’s Choice by Gramophone. Since 2003, she has been the artistic director of the Iitti Music Festival in Finland. In 2023, she was named a Steinway Artist in Hamburg.