Esa-Pekka Salonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen, born in Helsinki in 1958, is among the most influential musicians of his generation, a rare figure who has built parallel careers as a conductor and a composer of international standing, each feeding the other. Trained at the Sibelius Academy as a horn player before turning to composition and conducting, he came to wider attention in 1983 when he stepped in at short notice to conduct Mahler’s Third Symphony in London. His central achievement was the seventeen-year tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic (1992–2009), where he transformed the orchestra into a fearless champion of new music and presided over the opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall. He went on to serve as principal conductor and artistic advisor of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, and as music director of the San Francisco Symphony (2020–2025). Throughout, he has been a tireless advocate for twentieth-century and contemporary repertoire, conducting and recording the modernist masters while continuing to compose his own vivid, brilliantly scored works. Tonight’s programme is in many ways a self-portrait: Lutosławski’s Fourth Symphony reflects Salonen’s lifelong commitment to the music of his own time and to Lutosławski, the great Polish modernist who was his mentor; Debussy’s La Mer draws on his celebrated affinity for orchestral colour and large-scale architecture; and Sibelius’s Fifth returns him to the Finnish tradition that formed him, closing the evening on home ground.