Watch: Esa-Pekka Salonen named New York Philharmonic's Composer-in-Residence

Gramophone
Thursday, January 22, 2015

The Principal Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra assumes his first resident composer position, with video interview

Esa-Pekka Salonen (photo by Katja Tähjä)
Esa-Pekka Salonen (photo by Katja Tähjä)

The New York Philharmonic has named Esa-Pekka Salonen their new Composer-in-Residence. He will compose works for the orchestra for three years, beginning in the 2015/16 season.

Salonen, who is Principal Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and former Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, saw his Violin Concerto reach a world-wide audience last year when it was featured in an advert for Apple's iPad Air. That advert was broadcast on television channels worldwide and the concerto itself won the world's biggest composition prize, the Grawemeyer Award in 2012.

As a conductor, Salonen has won several Gramophone Awards, most recently in 2013 when his recording of Dutilleux's Correspondances with soprano Barbara Hannigan and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France for DG won the Contemporary category.

In the 2015-16 season the New York Philharmonic will perform Salonen's LA Variations (September 25-26, 2015) and Karawane (March 17-19, 2016), and Salonen himself will conduct Messiaen's Turangalȋla-symphonie (March 10-12, 2016). Salonen will also oversee the Philharmonic's new music biennial festival in June 2016.

In the video below Salonen looks forward to his new role with the New York Philharmonic:

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