Jukka-Pekka Saraste

Jukka-Pekka Saraste is one of the most outstanding conductors of his generation. He was born in Heinola, Finland, and began his musical career as a violinist, before studying conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Jorma Panula.

In April 2022 he was appointed chief conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra; he takes up his post in summer 2023. From 2010 to 2019 he was the chief conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, with which ensemble he toured to Austria, Spain, the Baltic states and Asia. In addition, Jukka-Pekka Saraste has been chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he is today honorary conductor, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He is also principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and artistic advisor to the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. He is a founding member of the mentoring programme LEAD! Foundation and founder of the Finnish Chamber Orchestra.

As a guest conductor, Jukka-Pekka Saraste works regularly with leading international orchestras, among them the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Orchestre de Paris, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the Berlin Staatskapelle, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle and all the leading Scandinavian orchestras.

In the USA and Canada, he has conducted the Cleveland Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestras of Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Detroit, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.

As an opera conductor he has conducted concert performances of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, Schoenberg’s Erwartung and Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle, a new staged production of Mendelssohn’s Elijah directed by Calixto Bieto at the Theater an der Wien, and a new production of Korngold’s Die tote Stadt at the Finnish National Opera. In the 2020/21 season he took over the musical direction of a new production of Aribert Reimann’s Lear at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, which will be revived, again under his musical direction, in January 2023.

Jukka-Pekka Saraste’s extensive discography includes the complete symphonies of Sibelius and Nielsen with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, works by Bartók, Dutilleux, Musorgsky and Prokofiev with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and numerous releases for the label Hänssler Classic with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, among them Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande, Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol, the complete Brahms symphonies, Mahler’s Fifth and Ninth symphonies and Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony. His successful recording of the complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies with the WDR Symphony Orchestra was released in 2019.

Jukka-Pekka Saraste has been awarded the Pro Finlandia medal, the Sibelius medal and Finland’s State Prize for Music. He holds honorary doctorates from York University in Toronto and from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.