Satu Vänskä was appointed Assistant Leader of the Australian Chamber Orchestra in 2004.

Satu was born to a Finnish family in Japan where she took her first violin lessons at the age of three. Her family moved back to Finland in 1989 and she continued her studies with Pertti Sutinen at the Lahti Conservatorium and the Sibelius Academy. From 1997 Satu was a pupil of Ana Chumachenco at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich where she finished her diploma in 2001.

In 1998 Sinfonia Lahti named her "young soloist of the year". 

In 2000 she was a prize winner of the "Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben" and from 2001 she played under the auspices of the Live Music Now Foundation founded by Lord Yehudi Menuhin which gave her the opportunity to perform with musicians like Radu Lupu and Heinrich Schiff.

Satu performs regularly as guest director and soloist with the ACO, and features in a variety of roles at festivals with the ACO in Australia, Niseko and Maribor.  An ardent chamber musician, Satu was presented in recital in July 2012 by the Sydney Opera House as part of their Utzon Room Music Series.

Satu plays a 1728/9 Stradivarius violin owned by the ACO Instrument Fund.