Esa-Pekka Salonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen is an internationally acclaimed Finnish conductor and composer, currently Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, London’s Philharmonia, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Born in Helsinki on June 30th, 1958, Salonen studied horn, composition and conducting at the city’s Sibelius Academy where his classmates included Magnus Lindberg, Osmo Vänskä and Jukka-Pekka Saraste (with whom he would go on to found the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra in 1983).

Although his first conducting experience came in 1979 with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Salonen was, at that time, known principally as a composer. It wasn’t until his debut with London’s Philharmonia Orchestra in 1983 - when he conducted Mahler’s third symphony at very short notice - that Salonen’s career as a conductor really began to take off. Largely off the back of that one performance, he was appointed the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor, a post which he went on to hold for almost a decade from 1985 to 1994. He returned to the Philharmonia as Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor in 2008, serving in both roles until the close of the 2020 - 2021 season.

From 1992 to 2009, Salonen was Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. His tenure - the longest in the orchestra’s history - was characterised by a unbending commitment to contemporary classical music, such that when it concluded, the orchestra created the Esa-Pekka Salonen Commisions Fund in his honour, explicitly for the purpose of commissioning (and performing) new works. After almost one thousand concerts, more than twenty tours and 120 world or United States premieres, Salonen stood down as the orchestra’s Music Director and assumed the role of Conductor Laureate.

Salonen was appointed to his current role as Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony in December 2018, effective from the beginning of the 2020 - 2021 season. He will conclude his tenure when his contract expires at the end of the 2024 - 2025 season, citing a difference in goals for the institution between himself and the board of governors.

As a composer Salonen’s most well-known works include a Piano Concerto, premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 2007, a 2017 Cello Concerto, premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the orchestral works L.A. Variations (1996) and Foreign Bodies (2001). He has served as Composer in Residence at both the New York and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras and his Violin Concerto (2009) has featured in an international campaign for Apple’s iPad.

A distinguished career in both composition and conducting, Salonen has received numerous awards and accolades for his contributions to both disciplines. Amongst these are the 2014 Nemmers Prize in Music Composition and the 2024 Polar Music Prize. In December 2020, Salonen was also appointed Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to Music and UK-Finland relations.