Erik Söderblom

Erik Söderblom, born 1958 in Helsinki, studied piano and cello since childhood. He studied opera directing in Munich with professor August Everding, continuing his studies at the directors class of Helsinki Theater Academy from which he graduated in 1987. Söderblom is one of the founders of Q-teatteri in Helsinki, nowadays recognized as one of the artistically leading ensembles in Finland. With this ensemble he directed an acknowledged series of performances of both newly written Finnish texts and classical texts such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from Underground”, William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”. All these productions have been shown at festivals in Finland and abroad. On Söderblom’s initiative Q-teatteri founded the Baltic Circle festival of which he was the first artistic leader. In recent years he has returned to opera and is considered to be a leading Finnish opera director. Until 2009, when he took over the directorship of Helsinki Festival, Söderblom worked as professor of acting at the Helsinki Theatre Academy.

As of November 2013