Born in Helsinki, conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen studied at the Sibelius Academy, and made his conducting debut with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1979. He was chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra for 10 years (1985–95) and director of the Helsinki Festival in 1995 and 1996. From 1992 until 2009 Mr. Salonen was music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and was named its conductor laureate in April 2009. During that time he conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s residencies at the Salzburg Festival, Köln Philharmonie, and at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, as well as on numerous European tours and guest performances in Japan.

Since September 2008 Mr. Salonen has been principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra. In his first season he devised and led City of Dreams, a nine-month exploration of the music and culture of Vienna between 1900 and 1935. The project has travelled to 18 cities across Europe, culminating with semi-staged performances of Berg’s Wozzeck in October 2009.

Mr. Salonen has given countless premieres of new works. He has led critically acclaimed festivals of music by Berlioz, Ligeti, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Magnus Lindberg. In April 2006 he returned to Paris’s Opéra Bastille to conduct the premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s opera, Adriana Mater, having previously conducted the Finnish premiere of her first opera, L’Amour de loin, in 2004. In August 2007 he conducted the first Finnish performance of Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone in a production by Peter Sellars at the Helsinki Festival before taking the production to the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, a festival he co-initiated in 2003.

Esa-Pekka Salonen’s forthcoming releases on the Philharmonia’s Signum label include Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 6 and 9, and Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. In November 2008 Deutsche Grammophon released a CD with Mr. Salonen’s Piano Concerto and his works Helix and Dichotomie. His first recording with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for Deutsche Grammophon (Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring) was released in October 2006 and nominated for a Grammy in December 2007. Mr. Salonen has also recorded extensively for Sony Classical, with repertoire ranging from Mahler and Revueltas to Magnus Lindberg and his own works. He last conducted the New York Philharmonic in December 2009

No performances currently scheduled.