“The music-making positively blazes” (The Times)

The 2021/22 season is Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s first as Principal Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra, London and he alongside this post he continues as Chief Conductor of Gothenburg Symphony and as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, close to his home in Finland.

Rouvali continues his relationships with orchestras across Europe, including with the Berlin Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Munich Phillharmonic and the the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and works with soloists including Daniil Trifonov, Nemanja Radulovic, Yefim Bronfman, Golda Schultz, Seong-Jin Cho, Nicola Benedetti, Alexandre Kantorov, and Pekka Kuusisto.

In 2020/21 Mr. Rouvali livestreamed several concerts in London, Gothenburg, and in Tampere, featuring music by Stravinsky, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and others. He returned to the Spanish National Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and made his Orchestre National de France debut in a live broadcast on France Musique.

Rouvali continues to build on his discography, not only adding to the Gothenburg Symphony’s impressive legacy but also with his orchestra in London and at home in Tampere. In January 2019 with Gothenburg, he released a celebrated first disc of an ambitious Sibelius cycle, pairing the First Symphony with the early tone poem En saga. The album won the Gramophone Editor’s Choice award, the Choc de Classica, a prize from the German Record Critics and the prestigious French Diapason d’Or “Decouverte”. In February 2020 they released the second volume, which features Sibelius’ second Symphony and King Christian II, which also has immediately been awarded a Choc de Classica award. The Sunday Times commented that “Thanks to conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s overall shaping and a rhythmic precision that nevertheless leaves the composer’s characteristically fluid phrases intact, the Gothenburg players’ performance, beautifully balanced and characterfully coloured, is powerfully cogent.”

In 2020 his first Philharmonia CD, a live recording of excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, was released by Signum Records, followed by another live recording of Prokofiev No.5, released in early 2021.

With the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and violinist Baiba Skride, he has recorded five concertos on the Orfeo label: Nielsen, Sibelius, Bernstein, Korngold and Rózsa.