Sakari ORAMO, сonductor (Finnland)

"The attention to detail was often heart-stopping... At the end of a stunning final part, Oramo was quick to hail his musicians, but the feeling was mutual.”
The Guardian, April 2008

Sakari Oramo is Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Principal Conductor of Kokkola Opera. At the beginning of the 2008/9 season, he took up the post of Chief Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra; and he is Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 08/09 following his extremely successful tenure as Music Director from 1999-2008.

Having already held the post of Associate Principal Conductor, Sakari Oramo’s position as Chief Conductor at the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra began in September 2003. An accomplished violinist, Oramo was originally concertmaster of the orchestra, during which time he enrolled in Jorma Panula’s conducting class at the Sibelius Academy. In 1993, one year after completing the course, Oramo replaced an ailing conductor at very short notice, and the resulting concert was an unprecedented success, leading to the announcement of his appointment as Associate Principal Conductor.

After a highly successful year as Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo was subsequently appointed its Music Director in September 1999. During his ten seasons with the CBSO, Sakari Oramo toured extensively with the orchestra, including in 2001 a visit to Romania, where he gained the prize for an “outstanding performance of Enescu’s work” at the George Enescu International Festival in Bucharest, from the Romanian music magazine Actualitatea Scala.

His programmes reflect his Finnish origins, as well as exploring the English tradition through composers such as Bax, Bridge, Britten, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Walton and Constant Lambert. In May 2003, Oramo was Artistic Director of the CBSO’s highly-acclaimed new music festival, ‘Floof’. In June 2004, Sakari Oramo received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Central England, Birmingham, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the musical life of the city, and in 2008 he was awarded the Elgar Medal for furthering the reputation of Elgar and his music.

Since his conducting debut with the Finnish Radio Symphony, Oramo has conducted regularly in Finland and throughout Scandinavia with many prestigious orchestras including the Oslo Philharmonic, Danish National Radio Symphony and the Helsinki Philharmonic. Appearances elsewhere have included NDR Hamburg, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Concertgebouw Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Hessischer Rundfunk. Oramo has also conducted Britten’s Peter Grimes with Finnish National Opera.

Highlights of the current season include tours to Spain, Germany and Austria with Finnish Radio, guest weeks with the Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonic, Hungarian National Philharmonic and Vienna Symphony orchestras; and performances of Lulu with Kokkola Opera in Helsinki in March 2009.

Sakari Oramo has a number of recordings to his credit, the most recent being of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius with the CBSO on the orchestra’s own label. Other highly-acclaimed discs with the CBSO include: a live recording of Mahler’s Symphony No.5, two discs of works by English composer John Foulds and a recording of Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No.1 with Leila Josefowicz, all for Warner Classics; the Walton and Sibelius Violin Concertos with Akiko Suwanai on the Philips label; a recording for Hyperion of the complete Saint-Sa?ns Piano Concertos with Stephen Hough, which collected several awards including the Gramophone 'Gold Disc' Award in 2008 for the best recording of the past 30 years; a complete Sibelius Symphony Cycle, a disc of Grieg and Sibelius songs with soprano Karita Mattila and all four Rachmaninov Piano Concertos with Nikolai Lugansky, all on the Warner Classics label.

With the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo has recorded several discs on the Ondine label which include music by early 20th century Finnish composers, Klami and Pingoud, as well as more contemporary composers, Kaipainen and Lindberg. Three of Oramo’s recordings feature him as violinist, with the soprano Anu Komsi performing Kurtag’s Kafka-Fragments, with the Avanti! String Quartet and with the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra performing works by Magnus Lindberg. He also recently released a disc of works by Bartok with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.