Esa-Pekka Salonen on his return to LA Phil as creative director: it ‘makes a lot of sense’
The conductor, who left the Los Angeles Philharmonic 16 years ago, will pursue special projects and mentor talent as creative director
At his final concert as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic 16 years ago, every musician in the orchestra stood in line onstage to hug a red-faced Esa-Pekka Salonen. At every LA Phil appearance he has made as conductor laureate this past year, energised audiences have begun the mantra of “bring him back”.
While the five-year appointment makes no administrative demands on Salonen, it will allow him to pursue special projects, create festivals, commission premieres, mentor young conductors in a new Salonen International Conducting Fellowship, and collaborate with Lightroom, an imaginative British hi-tech and artist-led immersive art venture.
But this does assure the continuation of Salonen’s progressive vision for an orchestra of the 21st century that transformed the LA Phil into the world’s most successful and influential symphony orchestra.
“It makes a lot of sense from my point of view,” Salonen says on the phone from his home in Finland.