Martti Rousi is one of the leading cellists of his generation. He is internationally renowned both as a soloist and a pedagogue. After playing the piano for 2 years, Martti Rousi began his cello studies, inspired by the strong Finnish cello school. His early teachers were Timo Hanhinen and Seppo Kimanen. In 1979, he moved to the Sibelius Academy to continue his studies with Prof. Arto Noras. At the age of 21, he won first prize in the Turku Cello Competition and was invited as a soloist by all the major Finnish symphony orchestras. In 1985, he received a Fulbright scholarship to study with Prof. Janos Starker at Indiana University and won the annual cello competition there. Between 1977 and 1983, he regularly attended masterclasses with William Pleeth and Valter Deshpalj and took private lessons with Natalia Gutman.
In 1986, Rousi won the silver medal at the VIII Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. Since then, he has performed with leading Scandinavian and European orchestras such as the Helsinki, Stockholm, and Oslo Radio Symphony Orchestras, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, CBSO in Birmingham, the Mariinsky Orchestra, the Moscow Symphony, the Polish and Hungarian National Orchestras, the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, the Shanghai Philharmonic, and the Johannesburg Philharmonic. He has worked with conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Valeri Gergiev, Okko Kamu, Osmo Vänskä, Sakari Oramo, Olli Mustonen, Ari Rasilainen, Leif Segerstam, Emmanuel Krivine, Bernhart Klee, Joseph Swensen, and Muhai Tang.
During the 1990s, Rousi played in a piano trio with violinist Leonidas Kavakos and pianist Peter Nagy, and also performed Beethoven’s Triple and Brahms’ Double Concertos. He has played with pianists such as Olli Mustonen, Kathryn Stott, Henri Sigfridsson, Laura Mikkola, Massimo Somenzi, and Juhani Lagerspetz. He is also invited to many leading chamber music festivals around the world. From 1993 to 2009, Rousi was the artistic director of the Turku Music Festival, during which many legendary artists such as Sviatoslav Richter, Yehudi Menuhin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Valeri Gergiev, and Lang Lang appeared there. In 2010, he became the artistic director of SIBAFEST in Helsinki, and from 2010-2011, he was the artistic director of the Sibelius series at Verkatehdas in Hämeenlinna. In 2012, he was appointed artistic director of Suvisoitto in Sysmä.
He is invited to lead masterclasses at leading music academies on all continents, and he regularly teaches at the St. Petersburg Music House. His discography includes several solo and chamber recordings for the record labels Ondine and Finlandia. He plays cellos made by Carlo Giuseppe Testore from 1690 and Jean Le Febvre from 1760; his favorite bow is a François Tourte from 1810.