The early music ensemble and orchestra Opus X was founded in 1995 at the iniative of violinist Petri Tapio Mattson, who is also the ensemble's artistic director.

The members of Opus X have studied with leading specialists in early music - Jaap Schröder, Wouter Möller, Lucy van Dael, Marcel Ponseele and Bob van Asperen, to name but a few - and some have played with such renowned orchestras as the Orchestra of the 18th Century and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.

Originally a chamber group of 4 to 6 players, Opus X has performed a wide variety of chamber repertoire ranging from Italian Early Baroque to quartets by Haydn, Mozart and Crusell (a late Classical composer of Finnish birth).

Since 1998 Opus X has also performed as an orchestra. The turning point was the ensemble's debut recording, J.S.Bach's Cantatas for bass and orchestra, with baritone Elja Puukko, for the Finnish 'Fuga' label in 1999 - the first Baroque orchestral recording produced in Finland.

During the J.S.Bach 'memorial year' of 2000 Opus X performed concertos and cantatas by the master, giving concerts all over Finland. The ensemble has also performed large-scale choral and orchestral works as Bach's St John Passion, St Matthew Passion and Mass in B minor, Handel's 'Messiah' and 'Water Music', and Mozart's Requiem. 

Opus X was the first Finnish Baroque orchestra to appear at an international music festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, outside Finland, giving two concerts there in 2001. Spring 2004 saw the release of the ensemble's second recording, Georg Muffat's Armonico tributo string sonatas, for the Finnish 'Alba' label. The ensemble has also recorded J.S.Bach's concertos for two keyboards and strings for the Italian label 'La Bottega Discantica', with Markku Mäkinen and Fabio Ciofini as soloists, and currently works with the complete recording of keyboard concertos by C.P.E.Bach for the Swedish 'BIS' label with Miklós Spányi. Further recordings are in preparation.

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