Biography
Early career
Salonen, born in Helsinki, Finland, studied 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 and the experimental ensemble Toimii ("Ears open" and "It works" in the Finnish language). 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 the primary reason he took up conducting was 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 at very short notice without ever having studied the score before that time, and it launched his career as a conductor.[1] He was subsequently principal guest conductor of the Philharmonia from 1985 to 1994.
Salonen was principal conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1984-1995.
Los Angeles Philharmonic
He made his U.S. conducting debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1984. "I had no idea what to expect," Salonen said. "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 has conducted the orchestra every season since.[2]
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 Andre 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[3]. Four months later, Salonen was named the orchestra's tenth Music Director, officially taking the post in 1992 and holding it ever since.
Salonen's tenure with the orchestra first 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 Messian; 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 perhaps most notably, 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 has become 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.[4]
At the end of the 2008-2009 season, he is scheduled to relinquish his Los Angeles post to Gustavo Dudamel. Though November 2009 will mark the 25th anniversary of Salonen's premiere with the Philharmonic, he is not going to conduct the orchestra to commemorate the occasion, saying, "I'm going to give it a short break. I think that it's important for Gustavo to get going without the old guy hanging around too much and all that." He does plan to conduct the orchestra at some point in the future, and he is already in discussions with Philharmonic President, Deborah Borda, about future project in Los Angeles. He has also said that he would love to work together with Frank Gehry.[5][6][7][8]
Photo Gallery: "Career retrospective: Esa-Pekka Salonen"
(excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
Video Gem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx-SYDQK-k0(Salonen conducts Sibelius)
