Vesa-Matti Leppänen was born in Turku, Finland. He began violin lessons at the age of five and studied at the Sibelius Academy of Music in Helsinki before joining the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the oldest orchestras in Europe. At sixteen years of age, he won the National Violin Competition for young Finnish violinists and has been the Concertmaster of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra since 2003.