Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra since August 2013, Hannu Lintu previously held the positions of Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Helsingborg Symphony and Turku Philharmonic orchestras.

Highlights of Lintu’s 2016/17 season include appearances with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Staatsorchester Stuttgart, Radio-Symphonieorchester Wien, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester and Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, and in North America with the St. Louis Symphony and the Toronto Symphony, Baltimore Symphony and Detroit Symphony orchestras. Recent engagements have included the The Cleveland and Gulbenkian orchestras, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, and the BBC Scottish Symphony, Iceland Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic orchestras. In 2015 he conducted a complete cycle of Sibelius’ symphonies in Tokyo with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the New Japan Philharmonic, and toured Austria in January 2016 with violinist Leila Josefowicz and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Lintu returns to Savonlinna Opera Festival in July 2017 to conduct Aulis Sallinen’s Kullervo, and in May 2017 he conducts Sibelius’ Kullervo in a special project with Finnish National Opera and Ballet with director and choreographer Tero Saarinen. Previous productions with Finnish National Opera have included Parsifal, Carmen, Sallinen’s King Lear, and Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde in spring 2016. Lintu has also worked with Tampere Opera and Estonian National Opera.

Hannu Lintu has made several recordings for Ondine, Naxos, Avie and Hyperion. His recording of Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos with Olli Mustonen and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra was released in September 2016, while other recent releases include recordings of Mahler’s Symphony No.1, a selection of works by Magnus Lindberg, and Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony with Angela Hewitt and Valerie Hartmann-Claverie. Lintu has received several accolades for his recordings, including a 2011 Grammy nomination for Best Opera CD plus Gramophone Award nominations for his recordings of Enescu’s Symphony No.2 with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and the Violin Concertos of Sibelius and Thomas Adès with Augustin Hadelich and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

Hannu Lintu studied cello and piano at the Sibelius Academy, where he later studied conducting with Jorma Panula. He participated in masterclasses with Myung-Whun Chung at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and took first prize at the Nordic Conducting Competition in Bergen in 1994.