Esa-Pekka Salonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen (born 30 June 1958) is a Finnish conductor and composer.

He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Born in Helsinki, Finland, Salonen graduated from Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu (SYK), one of the top high schools in Finland, in 1977 and then went to study horn and composition at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, as well as conducting with Jorma Panula.

His conducting classmates included Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Osmo Vänskä.

Another classmate on the composition side was the composer Magnus Lindberg and together they formed the new-music appreciation group Korvat auki ("Ears open" in the Finnish language) and the experimental ensemble Toimii (lit. "It works").

Later, Salonen studied with the composers Franco Donatoni, Niccolò Castiglioni, and Einojuhani Rautavaara.

His first experience with conducting came in 1979 with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, though he still thought of himself principally as a composer; in fact, Salonen has said that he took up conducting primarily to ensure that someone would conduct his own compositions.

In 1983, however, he replaced an indisposed Michael Tilson Thomas to conduct a performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London on very short notice, without ever having studied the score, and it launched his career as a conductor.

Salonen was principal conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1984 to 1995.

Salonen made his conducting debut in the United States with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1984.

He said:"I had no idea what to expect. But the one thing that I didn't expect was when an older player came to talk to me after the first concert and said, 'Consider this your future home'. Something was going on, because I felt the same. I sensed with an absolute certainty that this orchestra, in whatever way, was going to be a very important part of my life. Always."

He was subsequently principal guest conductor of the Philharmonia from 1985 to 1994.

In 1989, he was offered the title of Principal Guest Conductor by Executive VP Ernest Fleischmann and was to take the orchestra on a tour of Japan; however, controversy ensued when André Previn, the orchestra's music director at the time, was not consulted on either the Principal Guest appointment or the tour, and objected to both.

Continued friction between Fleischmann and Previn led to Previn's resignation in April 1989.

Four months later, Salonen was named the orchestra's tenth music director, officially taking the post in 1992 and holding it until 2009.

Salonen's tenure with the orchestra began with a residency at the 1992 Salzburg Festival in concert performances and as the pit orchestra in a production of the opera Saint François d'Assise by Olivier Messiaen; it was the first time an American orchestra was given that opportunity.

Salonen later took the orchestra on many other tours of the United States, Europe, and Asia, and residencies at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, The Proms in London, in Cologne for a festival of Salonen's own works, and in 1996 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris for a Stravinsky festival conducted by Salonen and Pierre Boulez; it was during this Paris residency that key Philharmonic board members heard the orchestra perform in improved acoustics and were re-invigorated to lead fundraising efforts to complete construction of Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Under Salonen's leadership, the Philharmonic became an extremely progressive and well-regarded orchestra.

Alex Ross of The New Yorker said this:"The Salonen era in L.A. may mark a turning point in the recent history of classical music in America. It is a story not of an individual magically imprinting his personality on an institution – what Salonen has called the 'empty hype' of conductor worship – but of an individual and an institution bringing out unforeseen capabilities in each other, and thereby proving how much life remains in the orchestra itself, at once the most conservative and the most powerful of musical organisms."

He co-founded the Baltic Sea Festival in 2003 with Michael Tydén and Valery Gergiev.

This summer music festival presents new classical music and aims to bring the countries around the Baltic Sea together and to raise awareness of environmental deterioration of the Baltic.

It continues to be held annually in one of the region's countries.

In November 2006, the Philharmonia Orchestra announced the appointment of Salonen as Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor at the beginning of the 2008–2009 season.

His initial contract was for 3 years.

Salonen has conducted several commercial recordings with the Philharmonia, including music of Berlioz and Schönberg.

In 2007, Salonen and the orchestra announced the conclusion of his music directorship in 2009, with Gustavo Dudamel taking his place.

Before Salonen's last concert as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic on 19 April 2009, the orchestra announced his appointment as its first Conductor Laureate.

In addition, the LA Philharmonic created the Esa-Pekka Salonen Commissions Fund "for the express purpose of supporting the commissioning and performance of new works" as a way to honor his support of contemporary classical music during his tenure as music director.

At its inception, it was endowed with $1.5 million.

During Salonen's tenure as music director, the orchestra gave 120 pieces their world or American debuts and commissioned over 54 new works.

By the time he stepped down, he had served as music director longer than anyone else in the orchestra's history, leading the orchestra in 973 concerts and 23 tours.

Salonen made his Metropolitan Opera conducting debut in November 2009 with the Patrice Chéreau production of Leoš Janáček's From the House of the Dead.

In November 2010, the Philharmonia announced the extension of Salonen's contract to 2014.

In 2012 his violin concerto written for Leila Josefowicz won the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition.

In September 2013 the orchestra announced the further extension of Salonen's contract through the 2016–2017 season.

In March 2014 he was awarded the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition by the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University.

The award includes a $100,000 cash prize, a residency of four nonconsecutive weeks at the school over the next two years, and a performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

In the same spring he was also awarded the first creative chair at the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich for the 2014–2015 season.

This post included lectures, workshops, but, most significantly, the commissioning of Karawane, a new piece for orchestra and chorus based on Hugo Ball's dada poetry and the performance of nine other Salonen pieces throughout the season.

In December 2018 the Philharmonia announced that Salonen would conclude his principal conductorship of the orchestra after the 2020–2021 season.