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    Esa-Pekka Salonen

    composer and conductor

    Vita

    Born in Helsinki in 1958, Esa-Pekka Salonen studied at the Sibelius Academy in the Finnish capital, focusing on horn with Holger Fransman, conducting with Jorma Panula, and composition with Einojuhani Rautavaara. He made his conducting debut in 1979 with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra; in 1985, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, which he led for ten years and with which he is currently associated as Conductor Laureate. From 1992 to 2009, Salonen was Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and from 2008 to 2021 he served as Music Director of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, where he had been Principal Guest Conductor for nine years early in his career. Since 2020, he has been at the helm of the San Francisco Symphony as Music Director. He was also Artistic Director of the Baltic Sea Festival, which he co-founded, for fifteen years, from 2003 to 2018. As a guest conductor, Salonen has led many renowned orchestras in Europe and the United States; opera productions have taken him to the Salzburg Festival, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala in Milan, and the Opéra national de Paris, among others. Especially appreciated as an interpreter of modern music, Salonen also gained international renown as a composer himself and has received such distinctions as the UNESCO Rostrum Prize and the Grawemeyer Award. From 2015 to 2018, he was associated with the New York Philharmonic as composer-in-residence, and in 2021 he began a two-season initiative in which he is being featured as conductor and composer in the series “Multiversum Esa-Pekka Salonen” at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie. Salonen is a recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society Conductor Award, an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, an Honorary Doctor of the Sibelius Academy, and an Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He teaches at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, where he directs the Negaunee Conducting Program.

    Lucerne Festival (IMF) debut on April 10, 1993 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in works by Haydn, Beethoven, and Nielsen.

    July 2022