Esa-Pekka Salonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen is exceptional among today’s musicians in having something unique to communicate to audiences both as a conductor and as a composer. Born in Helsinki, he is currently Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. From the 2008/09 season, he will take up the position of Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra, with which he has maintained a close relationship throughout his conducting career; in addition he has retained the individual voice that first brought him to attention as a composer and each new work is eagerly awaited.
Salonen has been Music Director in Los Angeles since 1992, overseeing the orchestra’s instalment in its new home, the Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Frank Gehry. Highlights of his directorship include residencies at the Salzburg Festival, Köln Philharmonie and at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, as well as numerous European tours and guest appearances in Japan. A typically visionary Salonen project with the Philharmonic was a semi-staged production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, directed by Peter Sellars in collaboration with video artist Bill Viola produced as a co-production with the Paris National Opera, and performed in the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
As well as his work in Los Angeles, Salonen has an especially close relationship with the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, where he was Principal Guest Conductor from 1985 to 1994. He is renowned for his performances of contemporary music, including countless world premieres, and he has led critically acclaimed festivals of music by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Ligeti and Magnus Lindberg. Esa-Pekka Salonen is one of the founders and Artistic Director of the Baltic Sea Festival – an annual event, which brings celebrated musicians and ensembles to Stockholm to promote unity and ecological awareness among countries around the Baltic Sea.
Salonen’s compositions cover a wide range of styles and genres but are united by their atmospheric and emotive intensity, in many cases featuring dense harmonies. Often they create their own worlds, a characteristic evident from his first large-scale orchestral work, the Saxophone Concerto ...auf den ersten blick und ohne zu wissen (1981-82), which takes its title from a phrase in Kafka. Floof, an experimental work from the same period (revised in 1990) is inspired by science fiction; an ebullient and histrionic work for soprano and ensemble, it is widely performed and broadcast. Also significant from this period is the series of solo works titled Yta (Surface).
The orchestral work LA Variations (1996) heralded a new period of compositional activity for Salonen. Gambit, another orchestral work, was premiered in Amsterdam in 1998, while the song-cycle Five Images after Sappho (1999) was co-commissioned by the Ojai Festival, California and the London Sinfonietta. Among his most important compositions of the new century are the orchestral pieces Insomnia (2002) and Wing on Wing (2004).
Current and forthcoming conducting engagements include appearances with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, New York Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

www.esapekkasalonen.com