Kalle Toivio

Kalle Toivio is a Finnish-American concert organist and pianist. Dr. Kalle Toivio is the Director of Music of the Parish of Corpus Christi and Notre Dame in New York City, and is on the organ faculty of Manhattan School of Music Precollege. Dr. Toivio has also served as the Organist and Director of Music at the Church of Notre Dame, the Organist and leader of the Schola Cantorum at Christ Church, Brooklyn, and as the Cantor-Organist of the New York Finnish Lutheran Congregation. He has given master classes in organ improvisation and repertoire in Finland and for the AGO in the United States.

Kalle Toivio is the winner of the First Prize at the prestigious American Guild of Organists National Competition in Organ Improvisation. His CD-Album Improvisations at St. Ignatius was released by the Pro Organo/Naxos-label. Kalle Toivio has toured in Europe, Japan and the United States. He has performed for the Finnish national television and radio, BBC in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Austria, and has been a featured performer on several Pipedreams-programs in the United States. Kalle Toivio was a featured performer at the AGO OrganFest 2020, and at the 2022 and 2025 AGO New York City Chapter Presidents’ Day Conferences. In April 2022 Kalle Toivio was a featured performer at the Unity for Ukraine benefit Concert at the Ukraine Institute of America in New York City.

Kalle Toivio has played recitals at the Princeton University Chapel (broadcast on WWF), St. Lawrence, Kansas, St. Catherine of Siena Church in Riverside, Connecticut, St. Boniface Church in Sarasota, Florida, St. John Nepomucene in NYC, Newark Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart, St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church in Brooklyn, New York, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Saint Ignatius Loyola, St. Mary the Virgin, in NYC, Helsinki and Turku Cathedrals in Finland, several times at the Lahti Organ Festival, Mörrum in Sweden, Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series in Chicago and at the Carnegie Hall. Kalle Toivio has collaborated with numerous artists and choirs, including singers Ain Anger, Heather Bobeck, Sharon Harms and Olga Heikkilä, Yves Dhar, Seeli Toivio and Jussi Makkonen and the Ghostlight Choir. On Halloween last year Kalle Toivio improvised organ accompaniment to the silent movie classic “Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror” at the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia.

Kalle Toivio holds degrees in Church Music and Piano Performance from the Sibelius Academy, and the Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts in organ performance from the Manhattan School of Music. He studied organ with McNeil Robinson and James David Christie, organ improvisation with Pekka Suikkanen, McNeil Robinson and David Briggs, and piano with Matti Raekallio and Nina Svetlanova.