JOASIA CIESLAK

is a Polish cellist, composer, and cultural entrepreneur based in Finland

Born into a non-musical family, she moved to The Netherlands at 19. Before graduating from the Conservatory Maastricht in 2015, she studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and later Västerås Mälardalen University. By 2023, she had completed Soloist studies at the Royal Academy of Music Aarhus and earned a degree in Cultural Entrepreneurship from the University of Humanities and Economics in Lodz.

Since her teenage years, Joasia has collaborated as member of orchestras and ensembles with artists across various genres, including Uusinta Ensemble, Ensemble MidtVest, Adam Baldych, Hugh Sheehan, Eriikka Maalismaa, Metropole Orchestra with Snarky Puppy, Michael Bublé, Baltic Youth Orchestra, RIAS Orchestra, and Nick & Simon.

As a composer and performer, she explored innovative sounds of halldorophone during residencies at EMS Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm and the University of the Arts in Reykjavik, deepening her artistic expression and broadening her approach to composition. In 2020, the Norwegian label AMP Music & Records released her crossover quintet, co-founded with jazz drummer Frederik Bülow.

Midway through post-graduate soloist studies, Joasia began seeking more artistic freedom beyond academic teachings. Performing as Joasia& she acknowledged the impact of both animate and inanimate collaborators on every project. Her final graduation performances included improvisations, premieres of commissioned music supported by Sibelius Foundation and Danish Arts Foundation, compositions co-written with Emil Sana, and her first original compositions on a major stage.

In 2023, Joasia experienced a mental breakdown. Later that year, she completed the Everest Base Camp trek, became a certified yoga teacher, and embraced her passion for triathlon.

For the 2024-2025 season, she creates music and concert experiences based on scientific data. Facilitated by Dr. Antti-Pekka Hyvärinen and Malte Steiner, she is developing a project that transforms ecological data—specifically air pollution—into music, informed by economic models of human behavior (insights from behavioral economics under the oversight of Dr. Juha Kilponen).

Throughout her carrier, Cieslak has performed as a soloist and chamber musician at festivals in Poland (Ensemble Festival), Finland (Kallio New Music Days, Helsinki Festival, Metrolla Festival, Meidän Festivaali), Denmark (Aarhus Chamber Music Festival, Rued Langgaard Festival, invited to New Music For Strings Festival), Croatia (Zadar Organ Festival) and Iceland (Ómar Festival in Hjalteyri). In her early twenties, she performed Shostakovich’s chamber music at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, and in her early thirties, she received a GRAMMY Award Certificate as an Associate Performer on the Grammy-winning CD “Saariaho: Reconnaissance” for Best Choral Performance for Helsinki Chamber Choir and Nils Schweckendiek.

She received scholarships from National Fund for Musical Instruments of The Netherlands, Sibelius Academy, Statens Kunstfond, The Arts Promotion Centre Finland TAIKE, The Finnish Music Foundation MES, Hanaholmen, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Finnish-Danish Cultural Fund, Valdemar Hansen and Jenny Viskum Foundation and the Holger Arndts Foundation.

Performed in The Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Finland, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Russia, Indonesia and Japan.

As a soloist and chamber musician Cieslak premiered music by Lil Lacy, Lauri Supponen, Athanasia Kotronia, Valery Voronov, Hans-Jürgen Gerung, Malte Steiner, Marzi Nyman, Steinn Gunnarsson, Christian Balvig, Mirel Iancovici, Heta Aho and Matilda Seppälä.

• Cultural Entrepreneurship •

To address the challenges faced by creative graduates, Joasia and Arto Sivonen co-founded Living Room Concerts, a multi-year event series that gave young professional classical musicians in Helsinki their first income and an expanded network.

Her initiative Crossovering is dedicated to empowering females and underrepresented voices to pursue career in music and overcome industry barriers. Some instruments are mainly associated with being used to play classical repertoire. Through interviews and workshops and by addressing inequalities related to ethnicity, race, age, disability, and parenthood, Crossovering is helping to inspire and create a more inclusive and diverse musical landscape.

Since 2020, she has run Binging Art Academy, a platform that hopes to enhance mental health through learning cello playing. By fostering collaboration, mindful practice, and community, she supports a global network of healthy cellists and shares her expertise with musicians at all levels worldwide. It is an online cello academy and community initiative that inspires people to learn the cello, enhancing their well-being, sense of core, and resilience in life.

• Music mentors •

Influential to Cieslak’s development on cello were her teachers, Henrik Brendstrup, Ola Karlsson, Jaani Helander, Hannu Kiiski, Tomasz Strahl, Mirel Iancovici, Dominik Polonski, Amit Peled and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt.

In 2024 she has begun private composition studies with Pessi Levanto.