Esa-Pekka Salonen, the 10th conductor to head the Los Angeles Philharmonic, began his 17th and final season as music director here in October 2008. Salonen, who was born in Helsinki in 1958, studied at the Sibelius Academy in Finland. He made his conducting debut with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1979, and his American debut conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1984. He was appointed Principal Conductor of London's Philharmonia.
Among the many highlights of Salonen's career with the Los Angeles Philharmonic have been world premieres of works by composers John Adams, Franco Donatoni, Anders Hillborg, William Kraft, Magnus Lindberg, Witold Lutoslawski, Bernard Rands, Kaija Saariaho, Rodion Shchedrin, Steven Stucky, Tan Dun, and Augusta Read Thomas, as well as his own works. He has led critically acclaimed festivals of music by Ligeti, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Berlioz, and Beethoven, and The Tristan Project. He and the Philharmonic have toured extensively since 1992. In October of 2003, Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic opened Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by Frank Gehry.
In March 2003, Salonen signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon. The following year, DG released a disc devoted to recent orchestral works, including Foreign Bodies, Insomnia, and Wing on Wing. In January 2006, Salonen and the Philharmonic recorded their first CD together for DG, the first live recording from Walt Disney Concert Hall. (In addition, four live concert recordings of Salonen and the Philharmonic are available on iTunes from DG Concerts.) Before signing with DG, Salonen recorded regularly with the Los Angeles Philharmonic for Sony Classical.
Salonen is the recipient of several major awards, including the Siena Prize from the Accademia Chigiana in 1993 (the first conductor to receive the prize), the Royal Philharmonic Society's Opera Award in 1995, and their Conductor Award in 1997. In 1998, he was awarded the rank of Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. Musical America named him 2006 Musician of the Year.
Composer Profile
Born: 1958, Helsinki, Finland
"Music cannot have its full appeal without its physical aspect. That's not cultural but biological - we want to dance. Music has just as much to do with movement and body as it does with soul and intellect."
Like Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, and Pierre Boulez, Salonen has managed to compose within the confines of a major conducting career. After training at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, he continued composition studies with Franco Donatoni and Niccolò Castiglioni in Italy. This produced a body of modernist works emphasizing solo virtuosity, leavened with expressive humor. More recently, he has made the orchestra his principal medium in a series of powerfully structured pieces, with a colorful, idiosyncratic style broadened by minimalist influences - particularly in elements of motor energy - and a zeal for immediate impact.
Selected Reviews
WING ON WING:
Played with new confidence, Wing on Wing took on a more euphoric character...The performance was pure celebration.
Concert Review / Mark Swed, Los Angeles Times / 12 February 2005
Wing on Wing was wonderful to hear again live, breezing through the same hall and through the musical forces for which it was written... I love its sparkle, its cold, clear wind.
Concert Review / ALAN RICH, LA Weekly / 16 February 2005
This new release confirms Esa-Pekka Salonen's true genius as a composer. With the Finnish Radio Symphony Salonen presents three original, powerful, captivating and - get this - thoroughly enjoyable works...music that's thought-provoking and challenging yet allows you to leave your antidepressants at home...The Finnish Radio Symphony plays with consummate virtuosity in these powerful composer-led performances. DG's recording presents it all with extraordinary clarity, presence, and dynamic impact. If you're looking to be excited about new music again, get this disc.
Record Review / Victor Carr Jr., ClassicsToday.com / 01 March 2005
This trio of recent works by Salonen suggests that he's one of the most interesting composers on today's scene. All three share the virtues of his highly individual style, modernistic and accessible... A fascinating disc that should be heard.
Record Review / Dan Davis, Amazon.com / 01 March 2005
The recent works here offer a measure of Mr. Salonen's gift for cinematically picturesque scoring... Wing on Wing is far more than the celebratory fanfare such works tend to be... This imaginative 26-minute work is sometimes downright eerie. The Finnish Radio Symphony plays all the music magnificently.
Record Review / Allan Kozinn, The New York Times / 20 March 2005
Rating: Excellent
As a conductor who works with a wide range of symphonic repertoire, it's no surprise that Salonen the composer uses his great colleagues of the past as a jumping-off point, whether it's mid-period Stravinsky, early-period Adams, or Nielsen's Symphony No. 3. Yet there's nothing really derivative about this music. In all instances, Salonen's personality soon takes over with his characteristically keen sense of orchestral color, witty sleights of hand, and a hectic sense of incident that makes his pieces downright entertaining.
Record Review / Philadelphia Inquirer / 20 March 2005
...the gorgeous or scintillating orchestration is only one of the features that make this music so memorable and instantly appealing...The performances are stunning (no need to doubt Salonen's credentials as his own interpreter), as are the recordings, which manage to capture a welter of detail without unbalancing the overall sound picture. Recommended.
Record Review / Stephen Johnson, BBC Music Magazine (London) / 01 June 2005
It's impossible to listen to this brilliant, exciting music and not be dazzled by its energy, its pyrotechnical display, its kaleidoscopic scattering of light and color...Performances (led by the conductor) are splendiferous, and sonics are flat-out stunning.
Record Review / Lehman, American Record Guide / 01 July 2005
He is a real composer, as this release clearly proves... his overall mastery of technique, form, and orchestration is indisputable. Above all, orchestration. Salonen's music is one for which the old descriptor "sonic spectacular" was designed. It's been quite a while since I've heard symphonic music with such an extraordinary range and depth of color, as well as a brilliant sheen and transparency. It's also wildly imaginative in its color combinations, registrations, and textures...This combination of rich contemporary harmony with powerful rhythmic drive makes him a fascinating test case for aesthetic synthesis...
Record Review / Robert Carl, Fanfare (Tenafly, NJ) / 01 September 2005
MUSSORGSKY/BARTÒK/STRAVINSKY:
In this vivid, window-rattling live recording, Esa-Pekka Salonen leads a big-boned but fluid account of Le Sacre, long one of his signature pieces, as well as a magnificently visceral reading of Night on Bald Mountain, in its original scoring, and a rich-hued, earthy performance of Bartók's Miraculous Mandarin. If you want to know why the Los Angeles Philharmonic is so highly regarded, here is the place to begin.
Record Review / ALLAN KOZINN, The New York Times / 08 December 2006
I'm not sure... that I've ever heard so much of the Rite's instrumental detail revealed so intricately: the interweaving woodwind of the introduction are exquisitely, indeed eerily sifted, and even in the biggest climaxes there is unusual clarity of texture.
Record Review / Terry Blain, BBC Music Magazine (London) / 01 October 2006
The Mussorgsky and Bartók works are Errol Flynn-dashing, with Salonen exposing subtle degrees of shade between the blacks and whites.
Record Review / Classic FM (London) / 01 November 2006
...there's plenty to catch the ear...I've never heard the final chord of Part One laid bare like this,...the opening of Part Two is incredibly well heard and finessed,...Salomon's speeds can be shockingly exciting...
Record Review / Edward Seckerson, Gramophone Awards Issue (London) / 01 November 2006
Salonen and his orchestra play with astonishing lucidity and care. Rarely have the various pieces of the music's motivic mosaic sounded out quite so clearly as they do here; rarely have the rhythms been etched with such exactitude; rarely have the instrumental timbres been so easy to distinguish, even in the most congested climaxes.
Record Review / Peter J. Rabinowitz, International Record Review (London) / 01 November 2006
...every orchestral explosion leading to the next in ways that never peak too soon... The Disney Hall sound quality is terrifyingly good.
Record Review / David Patrick Stearns, Philadelphia Sunday Inquirer / 06 November 2006
Other selected reviews are also available online.
