Olli Mustonen

Olli Mustonen is not only one of the most interesting musicians in Finland, he is also someone who creates surprises, intensities and amazements that are not commonplace in the music business. SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

Olli Mustonen plays an extraordinary role in today's music world - in the tradition of great masters such as Rachmaninoff, Busoni and Enescu, he enjoys a high reputation both as a pianist and conductor and as a composer. At the beginning of 2023, the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra will also take on the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the Lapland Chamber Orchestra, where he will combine orchestral concerts with chamber music and recitals.

His piano playing and conducting are always rooted in Olli Mustonen's compositional perspective on music-making: he follows the conviction that every performance should breathe the spirit of a world premiere. At the same time, the musician, who was born in Helsinki in 1967, is skeptical of performance concepts that merely attempt to be "different". In this field of tension, he feels compelled to constantly explore and create new repertoire beyond the established canon. Olli Mustonen was honored for his work with the Hindemith Prize of the City of Hanau 2019, following in the footsteps of previous prizewinners such as Daniel Barenboim, Paavo Järvi and Tabea Zimmermann.

As a soloist, Olli Mustonen has performed for many years with the world's leading orchestras - including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Munich Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra and the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, under conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Herbert Blomstedt, Pierre Boulez, Myung-whun Chung, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, Sakari Oramo, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Piano recitals have taken him to the music capitals of the world; most recently he has performed at London's Wigmore Hall, the Flagey Brussels, the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, the Dresden Music Festival, the Lockenhaus Festival, the Diaghilev Festival Perm, the Cal Performances Berkeley at the Sala Verdi Del Conservatorio in Milan, the Symphony Center Chicago, New York's Zankel Hall and the Sydney Opera House.

Conductor Olli Mustonen also works regularly with top international orchestras, including the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the WDR Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Queensland and West Australian Symphony Orchestras as well as the Camerata Salzburg, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra. His decades of close collaboration with the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra culminated in his appointment as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the orchestra in 2021, with whom he has since explored a broad repertoire ranging from Beethoven to Bartók and Rautavaara. In his fascinating triple role as pianist, conductor and composer, he has worked in recent years with the Atlanta Symphony, the New Russia Symphony, the Jerusalem Symphony, the Riga Sinfonietta, the Estonian National Symphony and the Royal Northern Sinfonia, with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra.

In addition to his symphonic works, Olli Mustonen also regularly brings his chamber music to the stage himself. He can often be heard with his long-standing duo partner Steven Isserlis; most recently, the two of them performed his trio Taivaanvalot, a hymn to music, together with Ian Bostridge in Amsterdam, London and Hong Kong. A new string sextet, commissioned by the Beethovenfest Bonn, was premiered there during the Beethoven Week 2020 by Meta4, Janne Saksala and Tabea Zimmermann. In the current season, his homage to Pablo Casals, a work commissioned by Kronberg Academy, will be premiered at the opening gala of the Casals Forum in Kronberg.

In addition to his ongoing work in Turku, this season he continues his two-year residency with the Camerata Zurich and goes on a fifteen-concert tour of Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. This will be followed by concerts in Japan with Herbert Blomstedt and the NHK Symphony Orchestra as well as a series of recitals in Tokyo. At Wigmore Hall, he will perform a complete cycle of Prokofiev's sonatas. He also appears in Finland with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Lahti Sinfonia under Dalia Stasevska with Rautavaara's Piano Concerto No. 3, which is also released on CD together with Martinů's Third Piano Concerto.

Last season, Olli Mustonen performed Martinů's Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Prague Philharmonia and the Vienna RSO. He returned to Brazil in a triple role, conducting the Orquesta Filarmônica de Minas Gerais, performing Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 and opening the program with one of his own compositions - The Old Church at Petajavesi. Parallel to three appearances with the Lapland Chamber Orchestra, his appointment as Principal Guest Conductor of the orchestra was announced. He has toured with Steven Isserlis in London, Milan and Turin. He has spent a lot of time in Finland and has performed with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Jyväskylä Symphony Orchestra, among others.

As a committed advocate of Prokofiev's music, Olli Mustonen has performed and recorded all five of the composer's piano concertos with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu, released by Ondine in 2016/17. He also has all of his piano sonatas in his permanent repertoire, which he recently performed - as a complete cycle or individually - at the Helsinki Music Center, the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw and the Ruhr Piano Festival, among others. He is also very close to the music of Bela Bartók, whose piano concertos are currently being recorded in their entirety with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Hannu Lintu. The composer Rodion Shchedrin, who dedicated his Piano Concerto No. 5 to him, also plays a special role among Olli Mustonen's artistic partners.

Olli Mustonen's wide-ranging and distinctive repertoire is also reflected in his discography. The recording of preludes by Shostakovich and Alkan released by Decca received the Edison and Gramophone Awards for best instrumental recording. Respighi's Concerto in modo misolidio with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo and a critically acclaimed Scriabin recording were released on the Ondine label. A recording of his own cello sonata with Steven Isserlis was released by the BIS label in 2014, and another highly acclaimed CD by this duo with sonatas by Shostakovich and Kabalevsky was released by Hyperion in early 2019.

Olli Mustonen began playing the harpsichord at the age of five and the piano shortly afterwards. He made his first attempts at composition at the age of eight. Initially taught on the piano by Ralf Gothóni, he later continued his studies at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, as a pianist with Eero Heinonen and for composition with Einojuhani Rautavaara.