Erkki Lahesmaa studied  the cello with Aldo Parisot, Zara Nelsova, Harvey Shapiro and Timo Hanhinen at the Juilliard School, the Yale University and the Turku Conservatory (Finland). He has also had extensive chamber music studies with, among others, the Juilliard- and Tokyo string quartets.

In 1990 Mr. Lahesmaa won the Juilliard competition in USA and in 1986 the second prize in the Turku cello competition in Finland.

Mr. Lahesmaa made his debut in New York in 1990 performing the Dvorak concerto at Avery Fisher Hall in Lincoln Center. Since then he has appeared as a soloist and chamber musician in Europe, USA, Canada, South-America and Japan. Latest appearances have been in the Warsaw Autumn-festival, Berliner Festspiele's MaerzMusik and the Huddersfield festival in Great Britain.

Mr. Lahesmaa is also an active performer of contemporary music and several works by Finnish composers have been written and dedicated to him.

As a chamber musician, he has been a member of the Artisti del Mondo and the Coryton ensembles in USA and the Arthur-Leblanc string quartet in Canada. He is also a member of the Plus Ensemble and the Ad Libitum piano trio.

Mr. Lahesmaa has also made numerous recordings and and his CD with Plus Ensemble won the best classical album award (Emma) in 2010.

Erkki Lahesmaa is head of strings and chamber music as well as lecturer of  cello at the Art University's Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, and senior lecturer of cello and chamber music at the Turku Arts Academy in Turku, Finland.

He has been a jury member in numerous music competitions including the international Khachaturian cello competition and has been invited to give master classes, among others, in Beijing and Shanghai conservatories, Royal Academy of Music in London, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Santiago de Chile, Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Florence, San Sebastian, Lisbon, Palermo, Trieste, Sevilla, Salamanca, Valencia, Glasgow, Weimar, Bremen, Warsaw, Krakow, St. Petersburg, Oslo, Reykjavik, Bergen, Kristiansand and Stavanger.

Erkki Lahesmaa is artistic director of  Nauvo Chamber Music Festival in Finland.