Conductor and composer ESA-PEKKA SALONEN was born in Helsinki in 1958 and studied at the Sibelius Academy. In 1979, he made his conducting debut with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra for ten years (1985-1995) and Director of the Helsinki Festival in 1995 and 1996. Salonen was Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1992 until 2009 and was named the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate in April 2009.
Since September of 2008, Salonen has been Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra. In his first season, he devised and led City of Dreams, a 9-month exploration of the music and culture of Vienna between 1900 and 1935. The project traveled to 18 cities across Europe, culminating with semi-staged performances of Berg’s Wozzeck (with Simon Keenlyside in the title role) in London and Paris. Philharmonia / Signum released a series of recordings from the project. Esa-Pekka Salonen opens the Philharmonia’s 2010 / 11 season with a semi-staged production of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, with artistic collaborator Peter Sellars and video art by Bill Viola. The project is a co-production by the Philharmonia Orchestra, Lucerne Festival and Konzerthaus Dortmund, in association with Southbank Centre, London and Symphony Hall, Birmingham. In January 2011, the Philharmonia will launch Salonen’s in-depth exploration of the music and influences of Bartók – Infernal Dance: Inside the World of Béla Bartók – supported by the Meyer Foundation.
Esa-Pekka Salonen’s appointment with the Philharmonia cements a relationship that dates back over 25 years. Salonen made his London conducting debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra in September 1983 (when he was 25 years old), stepping in at the last minute for an indisposed Michael Tilson Thomas to conduct a now-legendary performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. The chemistry was immediate, and Salonen formed a strong bond with the players. He was offered the position of Principal Guest Conductor, which he held from 1985-1994, and has returned to conduct the Orchestra on a regular basis ever since. Some of the Philharmonia’s most ambitious and important projects during this time, from Clocks and Clouds (Ligeti, 1996) to Related Rocks (Magnus Lindberg, 2001/02), have taken place under his artistic leadership.
Salonen’s appointment with the Philharmonia Orchestra directly followed his relationship with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was Music Director for 17 years. Salonen’s highlights with the L.A. Philharmonic include residencies at the Salzburg Festival, the Köln Philharmonie, and the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, as well as numerous European tours and guest performances in Japan. In April 2009, on the occasion of his 17-year tenure, the Los Angeles Philharmonic celebrated him with a series of concerts, including the premiere of his own Violin Concerto.
Esa-Pekka Salonen’s guest conducting engagements in the 2010/11 season include appearances with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the NDR Sinfonieorchester, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In February 2011, Salonen will be artist-in-residence at the Festival des Présences in Paris and will conduct the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France with two world premieres of his own compositions. In March 2011, Salonen and the New York Philharmonic will present a 3-week festival titled Hungarian Echoes in New York, featuring composers from three different eras, each inspired by his connections to Hungary.
Salonen is the recipient of many major awards, including the Siena Prize, given by the Accademia Chigiana in 1993; he is the first conductor ever to receive the prize. In 1995 he was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Opera Award and received the Society’s Conductor Award in 1997. In 1998, he was awarded the rank of Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. In May 2003, he received an honorary doctorate from the Sibelius Academy in Finland and the Helsinki Medal in 2005. In 2006, Musical America named Salonen as its “Musician of the Year.” In June 2009 Salonen received an honorary doctorate from the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts and was elected as an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April 2010.
Esa-Pekka Salonen is renowned for his interpretations of contemporary music and has premiered countless new works. He has led critically acclaimed festivals of music by Berlioz, Ligeti, Schönberg, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Lindberg. In April 2006, he returned to Paris Opéra Bastille to conduct the premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s new opera, Adriana Mater, having previously conducted the Finnish premiere of her first opera L’amour de loin in 2004. In August 2007, he conducted Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone in a production by Peter Sellars at the Helsinki Festival (first Finnish performance) before taking the production to the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm.
Salonen is artistic director of the Baltic Sea Festival, which he co-initiated in 2003. An annual fall event in Stockholm and across the Baltic Sea region, it invites celebrated orchestras, conductors and soloists to promote unity and ecological awareness among the countries around the Baltic Sea.
Esa-Pekka Salonen has a considerable discography. In September 2009, a new partnership with the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Signum label has been launched with the release of a live recording of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder; other recent and forthcoming recordings with the Philharmonia on Signum include Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique and Mahler’s 6th and 9th Symphonies. On Deutsche Grammophon, Salonen’s most recent releases include a disc of Salonen works performed with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and a DVD of Kaija Saariaho’s opera, L’amour de loin (with the Finnish National Opera) as well as two CDs with Hélène Grimaud with works by Pärt and Schumann. In November 2008, Deutsche Grammophone released a new CD, with Salonen’s piano concerto and his works Helix and Dichotomie, which has been nominated for a Grammy in November 2009. The first recording of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Salonen for Deutsche Grammophon (Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring – the first CD recording ever at Walt Disney Concert Hall) was released in October 2006 and nominated for a Grammy in December 2007. Having recorded for Sony Classical for many years, Salonen has an extensive discography with repertoire ranging from Mahler and Revueltas to Lindberg and his own works. Most of his works are also available at DG Concerts on iTunes.
Selected Reviews
WING ON WING:
Played with new confidence, Wing on Wing took on a more euphoric character...The performance was pure celebration.
Concert Review / Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times / 12 February 2005
Wing on Wing was wonderful to hear again live, breezing through the same hall and through the musical forces for which it was written... I love its sparkle, its cold, clear wind.
Concert Review / ALAN RICH, LA Weekly / 16 February 2005
This new release confirms Esa-Pekka Salonen's true genius as a composer. With the Finnish Radio Symphony Salonen presents three original, powerful, captivating and - get this - thoroughly enjoyable works...music that's thought-provoking and challenging yet allows you to leave your antidepressants at home...The Finnish Radio Symphony plays with consummate virtuosity in these powerful composer-led performances. DG's recording presents it all with extraordinary clarity, presence, and dynamic impact. If you're looking to be excited about new music again, get this disc.
Record Review / Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com / 01 March 2005
This trio of recent works by Salonen suggests that he's one of the most interesting composers on today's scene. All three share the virtues of his highly individual style, modernistic and accessible... A fascinating disc that should be heard.
Record Review / Dan Davis, Amazon.com / 01 March 2005
The recent works here offer a measure of Mr. Salonen's gift for cinematically picturesque scoring... Wing on Wing is far more than the celebratory fanfare such works tend to be... This imaginative 26-minute work is sometimes downright eerie. The Finnish Radio Symphony plays all the music magnificently.
Record Review / Allan Kozinn, The New York Times / 20 March 2005
Rating: Excellent
As a conductor who works with a wide range of symphonic repertoire, it's no surprise that Salonen the composer uses his great colleagues of the past as a jumping-off point, whether it's mid-period Stravinsky, early-period Adams, or Nielsen's Symphony No. 3. Yet there's nothing really derivative about this music. In all instances, Salonen's personality soon takes over with his characteristically keen sense of orchestral color, witty sleights of hand, and a hectic sense of incident that makes his pieces downright entertaining.
Record Review / Philadelphia Inquirer / 20 March 2005
...the gorgeous or scintillating orchestration is only one of the features that make this music so memorable and instantly appealing...The performances are stunning (no need to doubt Salonen's credentials as his own interpreter), as are the recordings, which manage to capture a welter of detail without unbalancing the overall sound picture. Recommended.
Record Review / Stephen Johnson, BBC Music Magazine (London) / 01 June 2005
It's impossible to listen to this brilliant, exciting music and not be dazzled by its energy, its pyrotechnical display, its kaleidoscopic scattering of light and color...Performances (led by the conductor) are splendiferous, and sonics are flat-out stunning.
Record Review / Lehman, American Record Guide / 01 July 2005
He is a real composer, as this release clearly proves... his overall mastery of technique, form, and orchestration is indisputable. Above all, orchestration. Salonen's music is one for which the old descriptor "sonic spectacular" was designed. It's been quite a while since I've heard symphonic music with such an extraordinary range and depth of color, as well as a brilliant sheen and transparency. It's also wildly imaginative in its color combinations, registrations, and textures...This combination of rich contemporary harmony with powerful rhythmic drive makes him a fascinating test case for aesthetic synthesis...
Record Review / Robert Carl, Fanfare (Tenafly, NJ) / 01 September 2005
MUSSORGSKY/BARTÒK/STRAVINSKY:
In this vivid, window-rattling live recording, Esa-Pekka Salonen leads a big-boned but fluid account of Le Sacre, long one of his signature pieces, as well as a magnificently visceral reading of Night on Bald Mountain, in its original scoring, and a rich-hued, earthy performance of Bartók's Miraculous Mandarin. If you want to know why the Los Angeles Philharmonic is so highly regarded, here is the place to begin.
Record Review / ALLAN KOZINN, The New York Times / 08 December 2006
I'm not sure... that I've ever heard so much of the Rite's instrumental detail revealed so intricately: the interweaving woodwind of the introduction are exquisitely, indeed eerily sifted, and even in the biggest climaxes there is unusual clarity of texture.
Record Review / Terry Blain, BBC Music Magazine (London) / 01 October 2006
The Mussorgsky and Bartók works are Errol Flynn-dashing, with Salonen exposing subtle degrees of shade between the blacks and whites.
Record Review / Classic FM (London) / 01 November 2006
...there's plenty to catch the ear...I've never heard the final chord of Part One laid bare like this,...the opening of Part Two is incredibly well heard and finessed,...Salomon's speeds can be shockingly exciting...
Record Review / Edward Seckerson, Gramophone Awards Issue (London) / 01 November 2006
Salonen and his orchestra play with astonishing lucidity and care. Rarely have the various pieces of the music's motivic mosaic sounded out quite so clearly as they do here; rarely have the rhythms been etched with such exactitude; rarely have the instrumental timbres been so easy to distinguish, even in the most congested climaxes.
Record Review / Peter J. Rabinowitz, International Record Review (London) / 01 November 2006
...every orchestral explosion leading to the next in ways that never peak too soon... The Disney Hall sound quality is terrifyingly good.
Record Review / David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Sunday Inquirer / 06 November 2006
Other selected reviews are also available online.
