Esa-Pekka Salonen

The conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen has been music director of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra since the 2020/21 season. Previously he was music director of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London (from 2008 to 2021) and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (from 1992 to 2009); today he is honorary conductor of both orchestras. He is also honorary conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and he is currently artist in residence at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, both as a conductor and as a composer. He also oversees the Negaunee Conducting Program at the Colburn School in Los Angeles. From 2003 to 2018 he directed the Baltic Sea Festival, which he co-founded.

His affinity for new technology has led to a fundamental overhaul of the audio-visual recording equipment at the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. He has realized innovative projects using the online platform SFSymphony+: these include an AI-supported interpretation of works by György Ligeti and the Grammy-nominated digital programme Throughline featuring music by Ellen Reid, John Adams, Kev Choice and Ludwig van Beethoven.

His extensive discography includes Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder with Lise Davidsen and the Philharmonia Orchestra, Bartók’s Dance Suite and The Miraculous Mandarin, also with the Philharmonia Orchestra, and Stravinsky’s Perséphone with Andrew Staples, Pauline Cheviller and the Orchestra and Chorus of Finnish National Opera. He has released recordings of his own compositions, conducted by himself, on the Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon and Decca labels; these include his Piano Concerto with Yefim Bronfman, his Violin Concerto with Leila Josefowicz and his Cello Concerto with Yo-Yo Ma. In 2018 a 61-CD box set of all Esa-Pekka Salonen’s recordings for Sony Classical was released.

He has received numerous awards and prizes, among them the Royal Philharmonic Society Music Award, the Litteris et Artibus medal (Sweden’s most prestigious award for art and literature), and the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland. He was also awarded the title of Officier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 1998. The magazine Musical America named him Musician of the Year in 2006, and in 2010 he was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He won the 2012 Grawemeyer Award for Composition for his Violin Concerto. In 2014 he was awarded the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Composition Prize, which led to a residency at the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music and performances of his music by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2020 Queen Elizabeth made him a Knight Commander of the British Empire. To date, he has received seven honorary doctorates in four different countries.