Artist Biographies
Osmo Vänskä
Osmo Vänskä is Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra, a position he assumed in the 2003-04 season, and he is Conductor Laureate of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra in Finland. Until July 2002, he was also chief conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow. Mr. Vänskä began his musical career as a clarinetist, holding the principal chair in the Turku Philharmonic from 1971 to 1976 and the co-principal chair in the Helsinki Philharmonic from 1977 to 1982. Following conducting studies at the Sibelius Academy with Jorma Panula, he took first prize in the 1982 Besançon International Young Conductor’s Competition and three years later began his affiliation with the Lahti Symphony as principal guest conductor. Mr. Vänskä has also served as music director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra (1993 to 1996) and the Tapiola Sinfonietta (1990 to 1992). He made his San Francisco Symphony debut in 2002, and last appeared with the SFS in 2007, conducting works by Aho, Sibelius, and Mozart.
In 2009, Mr. Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra toured Europe, giving performances at venues such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Vienna Musikverein, and the Barbican in London. Mr. Vänskä and the Minnesota Orchestra also recently completed a five-year, five-disc project to record the complete Beethoven symphonies on the BIS label. Mr. Vänskä’s new recording initiatives with the Minnesota Orchestra include a five-year project with BIS to record all five Beethoven piano concertos with pianist Yevgeny Sudbin; recording Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony with BIS; and, for the Hyperion label, making live recordings of Tchaikovsky’s Concert Fantasy and Piano Concertos Nos. 1, 2, and 3 with pianist Stephen Hough.
As a guest conductor, Mr. Vänskä has appeared with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, National Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and the major symphonies of Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Pittsburgh, and Saint Louis. In Europe, he has led the Berlin, London, Czech, and Helsinki Philharmonics, London’s BBC Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Orchestre de Paris, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Osmo Vänskä holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow, and in 2002 he received a Royal Philharmonic Society Award in recognition of his contributions to classical music. He was named Musical America’s 2005 Conductor of the Year, received the Finland Foundation Arts and Letters Award in 2006, and was given an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the University of Minnesota School of Music in 2008.
Antti Siirala
Born in Helsinki in 1979, Finnish pianist Antti Siirala made his orchestral debut at the age of seven and won the Juvenalia Chamber Music Competition at the age of thirteen. Mr. Siirala studied at the Sibelius Academy with Matti Raekallio and Ivari Ilja, and has also worked with Mitsuko Uchida and Murray Perahia. In concert, Mr. Siirala has played under conductors such as Paavo Berglund, Thierry Fischer, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Osmo Vänskä, and he makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with this week’s performances.
Mr. Siirala has appeared in recital at the Cologne Philharmonie, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Internationale Pianisten in Mainz, and at the festivals of Bolzano, Bath, and Kilkenny. He has also appeared as a soloist with the Detroit Symphony, BBC Symphony, Liverpool Philharmonic, Irish National Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre National de Lille, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Swedish National Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Wiener Symphoniker, St. Petersburg Symphony, and the orchestras of Melbourne and Queensland, among others. This season, Mr. Siirala continues his performance cycle of the complete Beethoven piano works at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
Antti Siirala is the first prize winner of three international piano competitions, including the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition in 2003. Mr. Siirala made his debut recording of Schubert transcriptions in 2003 for Naxos, and his 2004 recording of works by Brahms for Ondine received Gramophone’s “Editor’s Choice” award and the highest rating in the category of interpretation from Piano News. Also a champion of new music, Mr. Siirala has premiered works by Walter Gieseler, Kuldar Sink, Uljas Pulkkis, and Kalevi Aho.