Esa-Pekka Salonen – A Biographical Timeline
“2006, the Los Angeles Philharmonic tops the list of America’s premier orchestras . . . It has everything. The orchestra’s programming . . . has won the envy of music lovers across the country . . . The ensemble has burnished its reputation for energetic, streamlined playing . . . It has also leapt into 21st-century musical commerce, striking a deal to make some of its concerts available on iTunes. At the center of this grand renovation is Esa-Pekka Salonen, the 47-year-old Finnish conductor . . . its innovative programming and revamped sound are fully his work.”
The New York Times, January 2006
Esa-Pekka Salonen was born in Helsinki in 1958. In 1973 he entered the Sibelius Academy, studying the horn, conducting and composition, followed by further studies in composition in Siena and Milan. In 1977 he founded the avant-garde Ears Open collective, together with other rapidly rising young Finnish composers including Magnus Lindberg and Kaija Saariaho, and in 1979 he made his highly successful conducting debut with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, which led to engagements all across Scandinavia, including an acclaimed production of Berg’s Wozzeck at the Stockholm Royal Opera. He has received several awards, including the Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres from France, the Literis & Artibus from the King of Sweden, the Pro Finlandia from the Finnish government and an honorary doctorate from the Sibelius Academy.
1983
International breakthrough in London conducting the Philharmonia in Mahler’s Third Symphony
1985
American debut conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic; appointed music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, where he remains for ten years; also appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic (until 1989) and of the Philharmonia (until 1994)
1986
His Los Angeles Philharmonic recording of Lutosławski’s Symphony no. 3 wins a Grammy, a Caecilia Prize, a Koussevitzky Award and the Gramophone Award for “Best Contemporary Recording”
1991
Elected member of the Royal Swedish Music Academy
1992
Wins the UNESCO International Rostrum; takes up appointment as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic; shortly before that, in August, he and the orchestra are in residence at the Salzburg Festival where, in addition to concerts, they give four performances of Messiaen’s opera Saint François d’Assise
1993
Becomes the first conductor to receive the prestigious Siena Prize of the Accademia Chigiana
1994
Tours Japan with the Los Angeles Philharmonic
1995
This year and the next he is director of the Helsinki Festival; awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Opera Award; becomes artistic director of the Sibelius Conducting Competition in Helsinki, which takes place every five years
1996
In September he and the LA Philharmonic are in residence at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, where the programme is dedicated to the music of Stravinsky and includes performances of The Rake’s Progress
1997
Salonen and the LA Philharmonic visit the Canary Islands Music Festival and Spain; conducts the Philharmonia at the Salzburg Festival in the revised version of Ligeti’s opera Le Grand Macabre, directed by Peter Sellars; premiere of Salonen’s LA Variations with the LA Philharmonic; awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Conductor Award
1998
The LA Philharmonic’s “Filmharmonic” project debuts with Salonen leading the orchestra in the world premiere of 1001 Nights, featuring the images of contemporary Japanese artist Yoshitaka Amano and music by noted film composer David Newman
1999
Conducts the LA Philharmonic in the world premiere of John Adams’s Naïve and Sentimental Music, which is dedicated to Salonen; his own Five Images after Sappho is premiered in June in Ojai by the Philharmonic New Music Group conducted by the composer, who also conducts the European premiere in December 1999 with the London Sinfonietta
2000
Takes a year’s sabbatical in order to devote himself entirely to composition
2001
With his friend Magnus Lindberg he devises and directs the highly successful “Related Rocks” Festival, celebrating Lindberg’s music at London’s South Bank Centre; Salonen’s Foreign Bodies is acclaimed at its premiere at the Schleswig Holstein Festival, followed by a highly successful UK premiere at the BBC Proms
2002
Conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, Paris and Brussels in music of his compatriot, Magnus Lindberg; European tour with the LA Philharmonic; the Musica Nova Helsinki Festival focuses on Salonen’s compositions; his Insomnia premiered in Tokyo with Salonen conducting the NHK Symphony Orchestra; premiere by the Los Angeles Master Chorale of his Two Songs to Poems of Ann Jäderlund, written for the 75th anniversary of the Swedish Radio Chorus; his Laughing Unlearnt, a solo work for violinist Cho-Liang Lin, receives its world premiere in August at SummerFest in La Jolla (San Diego)
2003
Salonen and the LA Philharmonic return to New York for concerts at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Avery Fisher Hall; guest engagements include the Cleveland Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker, and the Kirov Orchestra during St. Petersburg’s White Nights Festival; in October he conducts the LA Philharmonic in the inaugural concerts of the city’s new Walt Disney Hall; artistic director of the Baltic Sea Festival. Signs an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon
2004
Release of his first recording for the Yellow Label: Credo – including works by Beethoven and Arvo Pärt, featuring pianist Hélène Grimaud and the Swedish Radio Chorus and Symphony Orchestra (Choc du Monde de la Musique, Diapason d’or, 2004). World premiere of his gift to Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall – his new work Wing on Wing; the European premiere follows at the Helsinki Festival, when he is also on the podium for the Finnish premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s opera L’Amour de loin at the Finnish National Opera, filmed live for Deutsche Grammophon; the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic mounts a Salonen festival at Stockholm’s Konserthus; in Los Angeles he conducts Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, a co-production with the Paris Opéra, directed by Peter Sellars
2005
To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Salonen’s debut with the Philharmonic, a festival featuring his music takes place in Los Angeles in February and later in the year he and the LA Philharmonic begin a complete cycle of Beethoven Symphonies; in March they take up a residency at the Cologne Philharmonie, performing works by Stravinsky, Berlioz, Debussy, Bruckner and Salonen; in April the Sellars Tristan production is mounted at the Opéra-Bastille, with Salonen conducting the Paris Opéra Orchestra; concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra throughout Europe. CD releases: Wing on Wing, featuring Salonen conducting the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in his own compositions (the title work plus Insomnia and Foreign Bodies), and Reflection, works by Robert and Clara Schumann and Brahms with Hélène Grimaud and the Dresden Staatskapelle; on DVD, Salonen conducting Saariaho’s opera L’Amour de loin, in Peter Sellars’s Finnish National Opera production, starring Gerald Finley, Dawn Upshaw and Monica Groop (BBC Music Magazine Award, 2006). In December he is named “Musician of the Year 2006” by Musical America
2006
Numerous concerts in Los Angeles with the Philharmonic, including completion of the Beethoven Symphonies cycle. Guest engagements include the Chicago and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestras, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre de l’Opéra National de Paris, the Sibelius Academy Symphony Orchestra at the Helsinki Festival, the Mariinsky Orchestra at the St. Petersburg White Nights Festival, and at the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, as well as the world premiere of Saariaho’s Adriana Mater at the Paris Opéra-Bastille. A release on SACD of Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps, Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain and Bartók’s Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin with the LA Philharmonic is scheduled for release in the autumn. The initial releases within the new “DG Concerts” series – downloadable recordings available via the iTunes Music Store – feature Salonen conducting the LA Philharmonic in Beethoven’s Symphonies nos. 5, 7 & 8, Witosławski’s Symphony no. 5, and the world-premiere of “Eleven Gates” by Anders Hillborg
5/2006
