Sakari Oramo & Anssi Karttunen

A guest conductor at the highest international level and a prolific recording artist, Sakari Oramo’s performances combine crystalline structural cohesion with authority, elegance and passion.

Now in his 12th season as Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo continues to captivate audiences in a season of intelligently and innovatively programmed concerts which highlight lesser-known compositional voices, as well as showcasing classic masterpieces. Mahler’s Symphony No.9 opens a season which also includes works by Thomas Adès, Mozart, Cecilia Damström, Beethoven, Lindberg, Stravinsky, Korngold and Bartók. Oramo returns to Gürzenich-Orchester Köln as their Artistic Partner for concerts of Strauss, Adès and Sibelius. Other guest engagements include returns to Dresden Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester.

Notable engagements from previous seasons include those with Berlin Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, Wiener Symphoniker, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Boston Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

Throughout his career, Oramo has held numerous prestigious positions; Music Director of City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1998-2008, Chief Conductor of Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2003-12, Principal Conductor of West Coast Kokkola Opera from 2004-18, Chief Conductor of Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra from 2008-2021, and Artistic Director of Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra from 2013-19. An accomplished violinist, Oramo was originally concertmaster of Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Oramo continues to champion new and rarely performed works with BBC Symphony Orchestra, and has given dozens of world, UK, and Finnish premieres, and worked with many of the most outstanding composers of our time. Oramo is a regular conductor at the BBC Proms – during the summer of 2025, he presented several Proms with BBC Symphony Orchestra including The First Night of the Proms, performing Sibelius’ Violin concerto with Lisa Batiashvili and crowning the evening with Vaughan Williams’ little known oratorio Sancta civitas.

In 2025, Chandos released the second volume of Oramo and the BBC Symphony’s exploration of the works of Grażyna Bacewicz, following an acclaimed reading of Symphonies No.3 and 4 in 2023. Other entries in Oramo’s extensive discography include recordings of Dora Pejačević’s Piano Concerto and Symphony in F-sharp minor with BBC Symphony Orchestra, works by Ravel with Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and Rued Langgaard’s Symphony No.1 with Berliner Philharmoniker. He has also recorded Sibelius’s complete symphonies with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Nielsen’s and Schumann’s complete symphonies with Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and many works by Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg with various orchestras. Successes across his catalogue include BBC Music Magazine’s Orchestra Award for Nielsen: Symphonies Nos.1 and 3 with Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, a Gramophone Award in 2019 for Laangaard: Symphonies No. 2 and 6 with Wiener Philharmoniker and soprano Anu Komsi, and a 2020 International Classical Music Award for Busoni’s Piano Concerto with Boston Symphony Orchestra and Kirill Gerstein.

Anssi Karttunen has always been on the cutting edge of classical music performance and is one of the most innovative cellists in today’s international music scene. He started learning the cello as a 4-year-old in Finland, a uniquely fertile ground for music and musicians, and subsequently built up a worldwide reputation both as a soloist and chamber musician. In his repertoire, he takes a fresh look at the well-known masterpieces and brings forgotten works to the public ear, as well as making own original transcriptions. He plays on modern, classical, and baroque cellos, as well as violoncello piccolo and electric cello. The latter features prominently in his current solo projects, which include images, video and electronics.

He is a passionate advocate of contemporary music. He has performed over 220 world premieres, collaborating with such composers as Magnus Lindberg, Kaija Saariaho, Pascal Dusapin, Luca Francesconi and Tan Dun. An astounding 31 concertos have been written for him. He premiered Magnus Lindberg’s Cello Concerto No.1 with the Orchestre de Paris and Cello Concerto No. 2 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Mania with Avanti! and Luca Francesconi’s Rest with the RAI Torino. Kaija Saariaho wrote her concerto Notes on Light for Anssi Karttunen and he premiered it with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who commissioned the work. Since 2007, he has performed the concerto over 50 times with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, and the New World Symphony among others. Future plans include premieres of new works by Antti Auvinen, Ramon Lazkano and Sean Shepherd. In 2018, he premiered Betsy Jolas’s Side Roads with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Gérard Korsten. Together with pianist Nicolas Hodges, he has recorded the works for cello and piano by the composer, who will celebrate her 100th birthday in 2026, on WDR, almost all of them as premiere recordings.

Anssi Karttunen has worked with world-renowned orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, BBC Symphony, NHK Orchestra, Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Ensemble Modern, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, New World Symphony, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and many more. He also performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician at Europe’s most important music festivals, including Edinburgh, Salzburg, Lockenhaus, Berlin, Venice, Strasbourg and Helsinki. His Zebra Trio, with violinist Ernst Kovacic and violist Steven Dann, performs concerts on both sides of the Atlantic. He also enjoys close collaborations with choreographer Diana Theocharidis and the producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist John Paul Jones.

His recordings traverse a broad musical spectrum, including Beethoven’s complete works for cello and piano on period instruments and 20th century solo pieces. He has released recordings of concertos by Lindberg, Saariaho, and Salonen on Sony Classical and a DVD of Tan Dun’s The Map for cello, video and orchestra on Deutsche Grammophon. Two of Anssi Karttunen’s recordings were nominated for a Gramophone Award in 2013: a CD of Magnus Lindberg’s chamber music works and Henri Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain, recorded with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Esa-Pekka Salonen on Deutsche Grammophon, which was chosen as the best contemporary recording of 2013. His recent recordings include Toshio Hosokawa’s Concerto Chant for Naxos, his own transcription of Brahms’ String Quintet for Toccata Classics as well as two tango CDs for Petals and Albany.

Born in 1960, Anssi Karttunen studied with Erkki Rautio, William Pleeth, Jacqueline du Pré and Tibor de Machula, among others. From 1999 until 2005 he was principal cellist with the London Sinfonietta. He was the Artistic Director of the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra between 1994 and 1998 the Suvisoitto Festival in Porvoo, Finland from 1994 until 1997. He was the artistic director of the Helsinki Biennale in 1995 and 1997 and the Festival Musica Nova Helsinki in 2015. He frequently gives masterclasses, for example at Carnegie Hall, at Cello Biennale Amsterdam, at the Juilliard School or at the Royal Academy of Music in London. At the University of Berkeley, he taught and performed as a Regents’ Lecturer in the autumn of 2015. In 2008, he initiated the annual Creative Dialogue workshop in Santa Fe in collaboration with the Sibelius Academy. He started teaching at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris in the autumn of 2014. Anssi Karttunen plays on a Francesco Ruggeri cello.