(First part of a series)
By: Pablo A. Tariman
Published in its print edition on September 21 – 27, 2024
Newly named music director of HK Philharmonic, Tarmo Peltokoski continues a stellar journey across continents—he’s only 24
A Berlin newspaper hailed him as the “talent of the century.”
Musicians and audiences were one in saying his latest Rotterdam Philharmonic concerts were “disconcertingly, breathtakingly beautiful.”
From the National Symphony in Washington DC to the LA Philharmonic, critics and audiences rejoiced the era of the electrifying “boy conductor,” Tarmo Peltokoski.
Where in the world can you find a 24-year-old conductor wrapping up his first cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen and Tristan und Isolde and a first performance of Siegfried with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra?
A winner of the 2023 Opus Klassik Young Talent of the Year award, he reinforced his world-class status when he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, which released his DG debut album last May. It consisted of Mozart’s Symphonies No. 35 “Haffner,” 36 “Linz,” and 40, recorded with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.
The album also features three of Peltokoski’s own hugely imaginative solo piano improvisations, one in each symphony, all with the touches of humor so central to his artistic personality.
In the first week of July, Peltokoski was appointed the new music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic, highlighted with a weekend concert July 5 and 6 at the Hong Kong Cultural Center.
In the audience was Filipino piano pedagogue and PPO subscriber Willie Aquino, who raved after the concert: “A fabulous concert by star Filipino-Finnish conductor Tarmo Peltokoski! I was seated just behind the orchestra and so I saw all his movements and gestures, which inspired the orchestra to play magnificently. His dynamics were widely varied and intense. You could feel his heart and passions in it. At times, he conducted with just his head, eyes, or eyebrows. He had the Mahler Symphony No. 5 memorized, conducted without the score. What a fantastic conductor!”
From the Hong Kong critic Ken Smith: “Peltokoski’s demeanour on the podium changed entirely from the restraint of the Prokofiev; he became effusively animated in Mahler, his gestures making it look at times as if he were waving an aeroplane into land, at other times as if he were preparing for take-off himself. While distracting, they were in the service of the music. At times, his approach seemed a conscious rejoinder to other conductors whose primary focus is on polishing the sound and who, in so doing, turn Mahler’s works into nothing more than a series of orchestral effects. For Peltokoski, every musical line had a clear purpose.”
Meanwhile, he got a warm welcome from his new Hong Kong Philharmonic family. “I am delighted to welcome Maestro Peltokoski as the next music director of the HK Phil,” said Hong Kong Philharmonic’s chairman of the board and music director of the search committee David Cogman in a press release. “He is a remarkable and visionary musician, and we are very fortunate that he will write the next chapter in our orchestra’s history. The Board of Governors is tremendously excited by the orchestra’s future under the leadership of such an outstanding conductor.”
The Filipino-Finnish conductor said he was honored and thrilled to be named music director of the orchestra. “After being highly impressed by the orchestra last year, I knew this would be a long-lasting relationship. The HK Phil is surely one of the absolute top orchestras in Asia. I am very much looking forward to lots of inspiring music-making with the brilliant HK Phil musicians in the years to come,” he added.
‘The HK Phil is surely one of the absolute top orchestras in Asia. I am very much looking forward to lots of inspiring music-making’
Peltokoski has a four-year term as music director, after serving as music director designate in the 2025/26 season. He succeeds Jaap van Zweden, who is also leaving the New York Philharmonic as music director. Peltokoski made his debut with the HK Phil season finale concert in June last year.
Peltokoski is not the first conductor with Filipino roots to work with HK Phil. The late violinist and PPO and MSO conductor Basilio Manalo served as associate concertmaster of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 1980, performing under Maestro Ling Tung.
A frequent soloist in the ’80s and ’90s was pianist Cecile Licad, who debuted with the HK Phil in the Hong Kong Arts Festival in the ’80s performing Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 and later Chopin No. 1 to great reviews.
Reported Hong Kong critic Harrison Ryker after Licad’s maiden engagement with HK Phil: “The star of last weekend’s Hong Kong Philharmonic concerts was a young Filipina pianist Cecile Licad. She played the very familiar First Tchaikovsky Concerto—a work which requires both tremendous virtuoso skill and a strong personality as well. She has both, and surely this is one of the most memorable performances of the work that one is likely to come across in many, many moons.”
Licad turned down an invitation to judge in the Chopin Competition in the ’90s, as the jury work fell on the day of her HK Phil engagement.
In 2017, one of the appointed assistant conductors of HK Phil, with a series of special concerts at the Hong Kong Cultural Center, was Filipino conductor Gerard Salonga, who is now with the Malaysia Philharmonic Orchestra.
The contract signing between Peltokoski and HK Phil at the Hong Kong Cultural Center was attended by HK Phil’s board of governors and orchestra musicians, with James Tong, director, Group Public Affairs of John Swire & Sons (H.K.) Limited, which represents the principal patron of the HK Phil.
HK Phil is not his only turf as music director. He is also music and artistic director of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, principal guest conductor of Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest, and music director designate of the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse in France.
For the record, Tarmo (then only 19) made his Philippine debut in 2019 as guest conductor of the Manila Symphony Orchestra, with then 15-year-old soloist Jeanne Marquez. A program of a Sibelius violin concerto and Beethoven’s Fifth led to a rousing standing ovation for the young conducting sensation.
A 2019 review in the Philippine Daily Inquirer was the only credential he had when he set out to conquer Europe three years later. Before his Philippine debut in 2019, Peltokoski had already conducted the Sofia Philharmonic (Bulgaria), Janácek Philharmonic (Ostrava, Czech Republic), and South Denmark Philharmonic, where Licad did an all-Gershwin recording with Gerard Salonga.
Before his Manila debut in 2019, he told me that 2018 for him started with a lot of piano playing, a competition and a performance of Chopin’s E Minor concerto. “After that, I had a lot of conducting courses and an audition for the Sibelius Academy,” he said. “I got in, never finished high school, and began studies at the academy.”
As pianist, he has played a lot of concerts. “But studying in the famous conducting class was a huge honor and responsibility. Nothing is more natural to me than playing the piano. But the truth is, conducting is in many ways more difficult than playing an instrument. Not in any technical sense, but in terms of the vastness of the craft. This has nothing to do with a choice to conduct rather than to play something. The real reason I wanted to conduct is that I love symphonies more than piano sonatas.”
When he debuted in Manila in 2019, he knew he had to do Beethoven’s Fifth from the way he has analyzed the music. “Since there is a 211-year-old tradition of playing it, we know now that it can be played in many different ways. Earlier, it has been associated with the huge Germanic sounds of Furtwängler and Karajan, the one and only Carlos Kleiber, the authentic period approach of Harnoncourt and Norrington. It is a timeless classic, a truly immortal work of art which will never be forgotten.”
After his Manila debut, Peltokoski encountered German cellist Alban Gerhardt in a concert with Orquestra de Valencia in Spain. Gerhardt recalled after his first encounter with the Filipino-Finnish conductor: “When I started playing the cello publicly some 35 years ago, some of the conductors could have been my grandparents. I had to get slowly used to not being the youngest on stage anymore. But yesterday I played a concert with the Orquestra de Valencia and there the brilliant Tarmo Peltokoski was younger than my son. It was a memorable concert.” Gerhardt performed with Cecile Licad and the PPO in 2009.
The other star soloists of Peltokoski include the now celebrated pianist Yuja Wang and Tchaikovsky gold medalist Victoria Mullova.
The world’s youngest star conductor came from mixed Filipino-Finnish parentage. His father is Raine Peltokoski from Vaasa, Finland, and his mother is Flor Saulon Peltokoski from Davao City.
From Vaasa, they moved to Helsinki when Peltokoski was 16 where he studied at the Helsinki Conservatory, and then at the Sibelius Academy.
Both his parents are non-musicians, but Peltokoski’s retired grandmother was a singer and voice teacher. She played the piano accompanying her voice students. Flor’s mother was also into piano playing, but not as professional as her mother-in-law. Flor says Peltokoski loves rice and Filipino food like adobo and spring rolls.
Flor says Peltokoski loves rice and Filipino food like adobo and spring rolls
She said Tarmo is very close to his parents. “He loves to be with his friends, in his free time. And when at home, he just wants to stay and bond with us. He loves to be with his family. I think this is a very Filipino trait.”
Forthcoming engagements include his first appearance with the SWR Symphonieorchester at the Whitsun Festival in Baden-Baden and his debut at the Musikverein’s Golden Hall with the RSB Berlin at the Konzerthaus Berlin.
In July 2024, he will be at the Verbier Festival and with another Wagner warhorse, Götterdämmerung, in Riga.
His conducting journey started with first lessons in conducting when he was 14, under the legendary Finnish teacher Jorma Panula. More studies in conducting and piano came four years later at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He joined Sakari Oramo’s conducting class soon after. Peltokoski’s mentors included Hannu Lintu, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, whose professional guidance has complemented his own deep study of the operatic and symphonic repertoire.
He admitted that, as an 11-year-old, he was inspired to take up conducting upon his discovery of Daniel Barenboim’s recording of Wagner’s Ring—a life-changing experience for him.
“What I’m doing now started with me going insane when I heard Wagner at the age of 11,” he recalled. “That’s where my interest in conducting began. Everything has grown from there.”
In my last interview with him after his Rotterdam Philharmonic engagements, he gave us a clue of what it takes to be a good conductor. “There are only three rules,” he told me. “Study scores, study scores, and study scores. Of course, it doesn’t end there. One also has to conduct and rehearse well.”#
