Esa-Pekka Salonen (; born 30 June 1958) is a Finnish conductor and composer. He is the principal conductor designate of Orchestre de Paris and creative director designate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is also conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was music director of the San Francisco Symphony from 2020 to 2025.
Life and career
Early work Born in Helsinki, Finland, Salonen graduated from Helsingin Suomalainen Yhteiskoulu (SYK), one of the top high schools in Finland, in 1977 and then went to study 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 ("Ears open" in the Finnish language) and the experimental ensemble Toimii (lit. "It works"). 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 he took up conducting primarily 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 on very short notice, without ever having studied the score, and it launched his career as a conductor. 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 to 1995. He co-founded the Baltic Sea Festival in 2003 with and Valery Gergiev. This summer music festival presents new classical music and aims to bring the countries around the Baltic Sea together and to raise awareness of environmental deterioration of the Baltic. It continues to be held annually in one of the region's countries.
Los Angeles Philharmonic Salonen made his conducting debut in the United States with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1984. He said:
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 André 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. Four months later, Salonen was named the orchestra's tenth music director, officially taking the post in 1992 and holding it until 2009.
Salonen's tenure with the orchestra 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 Messiaen; 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 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 became an extremely progressive and well-regarded orchestra. Alex Ross of The New Yorker said this:
In 2007, Salonen and the orchestra announced the conclusion of his music directorship in 2009, with Gustavo Dudamel taking his place.
Before Salonen's last concert as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic on 19 April 2009, the orchestra announced his appointment as its first Conductor Laureate. In addition, the LA Philharmonic created the Esa-Pekka Salonen Commissions Fund "for the express purpose of supporting the commissioning and performance of new works" as a way to honor his support of contemporary classical music during his tenure as music director. At its inception, it was endowed with $1.5 million.
During Salonen's tenure as music director, the orchestra gave 120 pieces their world or American debuts and commissioned over 54 new works. By the time he stepped down, he had served as music director longer than anyone else in the orchestra's history, leading the orchestra in 973 concerts and 23 tours.
Philharmonia Orchestra
In November 2006, the Philharmonia Orchestra announced the appointment of Salonen as Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor at the beginning of the 2008–2009 season. His initial contract was for 3 years. Salonen has conducted several commercial recordings with the Philharmonia, including music of Berlioz and Schönberg. In November 2010, the Philharmonia announced the extension of Salonen's contract to 2014. In September 2013 the orchestra announced the further extension of Salonen's contract through the 2016–2017 season. In December 2018 the Philharmonia announced that Salonen would conclude his principal conductorship of the orchestra after the 2020–2021 season.
Salonen made his Metropolitan Opera conducting debut in November 2009 with the Patrice Chéreau production of Leoš Janáček's From the House of the Dead.
In 2012 his violin concerto written for Leila Josefowicz won the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition. In March 2014 he was awarded the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Musical Composition by the Henry and Leigh Bienen School of Music at Northwestern University. The award includes a $100,000 cash prize, a residency of four nonconsecutive weeks at the school over the next two years, and a performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In the same spring he was also awarded the first creative chair at the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich for the 2014–2015 season. This post included lectures, workshops, but, most significantly, the commissioning of Karawane, a new piece for orchestra and chorus based on Hugo Ball's dada poetry and the performance of nine other Salonen pieces throughout the season.
In autumn 2015 Salonen began a three-season appointment as composer-in-residence of the New York Philharmonic. He serves as an advisor to The Sync Project, a global collaboration seeking to understand and harness music's effect on brain health. In August 2016 Salonen was named the first artist in association with the Finnish National Opera and Ballet.
San Francisco Symphony Salonen first guest-conducted the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) in 2004. He returned for guest-conducting appearances in 2012 and 2015. In December 2018 the SFS announced the appointment of Salonen as its next music director, effective with the 2020–2021 season, with an initial contract of five seasons. In March 2024, Salonen announced his departure from the San Francisco Symphony upon the expiration of his contract in 2025, stating that "I do not share the same goals for the future of the institution as the Board of Governors does." Some SFS patrons expressed support for Salonen and displeasure with the board's direction.
Orchestre de Paris In September 2025, the Orchestre de Paris announced the appointment of Salonen as its principal conductor, effective with the 2027–2028 season, with an initial contract of five years. Salonen had first guest-conducted the Orchestre de Paris in 1988. In parallel, the Philharmonie de Paris announced the appointment of Salonen to the newly created post of chaire Création et innovation ('creativity and innovation chair'), as of the 2027–2028 season, with an initial contract of five seasons. Also in September 2025, the Los Angeles Philharmonic announced the appointment of Salonen to the new post of creative director, effective in 2026, leading 6 weeks of concerts per year. The orchestra later clarified that the position would be concurrent to the eventual Music Director hired after Gustavo Dudamel and also to John Adams' role of Creative Chair, that Salonen would keep his title of Conductor Laureate, and not be involved in either programming decisions outside his six weeks per season or have any role in filling open chairs within the orchestra.
Digital projects Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra have worked on multi-disciplinary festivals together, including Woven Words: Music begins where words end to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Witold Lutosławski, Salonen's mentor. They also created the award-winning RE-RITE installation, which was first exhibited in London in 2009 and has since travelled to Portugal, China, Turkey, Germany, and Austria. The digital residency allows members of the public to conduct, play and step inside the Philharmonia Orchestra with Salonen through audio and video projections of musicians performing The Rite of Spring. They followed-up with another installation, Universe of Sound, which was based on Gustav Holst's The Planets, debuted at London's Science Museum, and won the 2012 Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Audiences and Engagement. Salonen and the Philharmonia Orchestra, in partnership with Music Sales Group, Rite Digital, and Touch Press, released a successful iPad app, "The Orchestra". Slate called the interactive tour through orchestral history "the perfect classical music app." In the autumn of 2016 the Philharmonia Orchestra launched a digital takeover of the Southbank Centre, featuring the first major virtual-reality production from a UK symphony orchestra.
Apple campaign
In 2014 Salonen was part of an international television and web campaign for Apple, promoting iPad Air. The campaign included not only the ad itself, but also discussions with Salonen on classical music, inspiration, and composing. Apple also offered a new and, for a limited time, free recording of Salonen's Grawemeyer prize-winning violin concerto, featuring the violinist Leila Josefowicz and the Philharmonia Orchestra, 20 of Salonen's classical music picks on the iTunes Store classical music page, 15 of Salonen's iPad app picks in the app store, and a guest DJ station on iTunes Radio.
The ad was noted for "the novelty of seeing a contemporary classical composer in a piece of mainstream advertising," for the synchronisation of the video editing with the score, and for the positive portrayal of classical music as compared to its typical pop cultural image. Salonen also led a concert with violinist Leila Josefowicz and the Philharmonia Orchestra in an Apple store in Berlin and spoke about mixing music and technology. It was the first time that a full orchestra had performed in an Apple store.
In the summer of 2015, Salonen spoke on the uses of technology in music education to a group of Apple Distinguished Educators.
Personal life Salonen has been married twice. His first marriage was to Jane Price, a former musician with the Philharmonia Orchestra. The couple had three children: daughters Ella Aneira and Anja Sofia, and son Oliver. Salonen and Price separated in 2017 and filed for divorce in June 2018 after 26 years of marriage. Salonen married Kaarina Gould in 2021.
When Igor Stravinsky's former Beverly Hills residence, at 1260 North Wetherly Drive, was put up for sale, Salonen strongly considered buying it. He stated, however, that after visiting the house and noting that indentations from Stravinsky's piano were still visible in the carpet, he was too intimidated by the prospect of trying to compose in the same house where Stravinsky had written such works as Symphony in Three Movements, the Concerto in D for Strings, The Rake's Progress, Orpheus, Agon, the Cantata, and the Mass.
Honours and awards