Few of the world’s major maestros can boast a light carbon footprint. It’s hardly compatible with orchestra-hopping, yet some conductors manage better than others. Despite his busy international schedule, Sakari Oramo succeeds at least on a local level.
Whether in Helsinki or London, I’ve never known him not to turn up for an interview on a bicycle, and he still has his helmet in hand when we meet in the foyer of the Royal College of Music (RCM) before a preliminary rehearsal there for one of his 2024 BBC Proms programmes.
It helps that the Finnish conductor has in recent years focused the most substantial part of his work in Helsinki, his home when not travelling, and London, where for the last decade he has been chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO). These two bases come together in the third (25 Aug) of his four BBC Proms this summer, when he conducts the combined orchestras of the Royal College of Music and the Sibelius Academy.
Sakari Oramo at the 2024 BBC Proms: Sibelius, Holst and more
This ground-breaking collaboration will represent a Proms debut for both institutions with a programme mixing well-known Holst (his cosmic symphonic suite The Planets) with little-known Sibelius (The Wood Nymph) and the world premiere of a newly commissioned song cycle by Lara Poe (Songs from the Countryside).
Sakari Oramo has been a professor at the Sibelius Academy since 2020, but Finland’s foremost musical training institution has always been a part of his life. ‘I studied violin there, and conducting later on,’ though he points out that because of a fast-rising career he never actually graduated.
‘I was getting too busy. But both my parents were professors there — my mother a professor of piano for decades, and my father a professor of musicology. It kind of goes in the family. Now I conduct about two or three concerts per academic year with the orchestra of the Academy. Also, I’m supervising the whole orchestral programme, seeing that it’s balanced. It’s a big task. I thought when I embarked on it that it should be possible to combine an international career with teaching, as that’s for everyone’s good. But it’s not so easy…’
'The BBC SO wanted me to take them on a musical journey'
All of Oramo’s other Proms this year are with the BBC SO, and an emphasis on English and Finnish music – specialities of the conductor – makes them look quite personal (less so the Last Night of the Proms on 14 Sept, which of course has its formula). Add in his lengthy tenure at the BBC SO, his lifelong connection with the Sibelius Academy and the fact that one of the soloists is his wife, the soprano Anu Komsi, and these concerts appear positively autobiographical.
‘Yes, I’m sort of able to write my name under these programmes. I think that’s the whole point of being involved somewhere for the long term. When I started as chief conductor, the BBC SO and [the then general manager] Paul Hughes put it very beautifully — saying they wanted me to take them on a musical journey. Ideally, that’s what a long relationship with a conductor is all about.’
That musical journey has, unforgettably, included such events as Busoni’s stunning Piano Concerto (with Garrick Ohlsson) and performances of the pioneering Croatian composer Dora Pejačević, but Sakari Oramo prefers to leave some mainstream favourites such as Bruckner and Wagner to others. ‘One of my nightmares is doing Bruckner at the Barbican, because it’s just not suited to that space. At the Proms I’ve done the Fifth Symphony. But I don’t do a lot of Bruckner – I just don’t feel I’m at my best with his music.’
Sakari Oramo on avoiding Russian music in 2024
Oramo also reveals that, at present, he’s not conducting any music by Russian composers. ‘It’s a personal choice. For me, we should not be ignoring the fact that the Russian propaganda machine is using this fantastic heritage of Russian music for a set of purposes that are not really legitimate. That’s why I think that at the moment we need to stay away from routinely programming Tchaikovsky or Rimsky-Korsakov, for example – notwithstanding what the composers’ ideas were or that maybe they had nothing to do with the sort of behaviour we see from Russia. But they are all part of one cultural realm, and as a Finn I feel particularly strongly about it.’
The long border Finland shares with Russia shaped his awareness early on – not always negatively. ‘I worked with Soviet violin teachers, and of course with Ilya Musin, the great conducting teacher who came from Leningrad/St Petersburg to the Sibelius Academy to teach. I studied the violin in Holland with Viktor Liberman, who had been leader of the Leningrad Philharmonic in Yevgeny Mravinsky’s time. So, I have nothing against Russian people or Russian culture. Maybe I sometimes feel a bit nostalgic about missing Russian music, but I think it’s better to stay away from it at this stage.’
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Some big boots to fill
Sakari Oramo was still a relatively unknown conductor when he so successfully succeeded Simon Rattle at the helm of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in 1998, and he subsequently enjoyed distinguished tenures at the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (where he had earlier been concertmaster). Yet he singles out his work with the BBC SO as the highlight of his career so far.
‘Nowhere have I experienced such a warmth, such a great professional attitude, such a great feeling of community — and a feeling of musicianship, of willingness to improve and do better, despite them already being very good. All my long-term orchestral relationships have been great in their way. But the BBC SO is the highlight – the sort of thing to which I’ve always aspired. When I started, I didn’t expect it to grow into what it has. Every programme I choose to do with the orchestra has its own kind of identity, its own personality.’
Earlier in his career, Oramo championed the neglected English and Finnish composers John Foulds and Armas Launis, and now he is turning his attention to their contemporary Gustav Holst, conducting him twice at the Proms (3 & 25 Aug) and putting him in the context of the European mainstream. This context also shapes his view of another of his favourites, Elgar, whose magisterial Cello Concerto features in the 3 August Prom alongside Harvey’s Tranquil Abiding and Holst’s The Cloud Messenger. ‘I love Holst’s way of writing so precisely. It’s not easy to conduct; it doesn’t play itself. It’s meticulous music – a little like Ravel in that sense.’
'This music is so good, it deserves to be heard'
Contemporary music is another of Oramo’s preoccupations, and this will be the first time he has conducted the Finnish-American composer Lara Poe. ‘She grew up in both the US and Finland; and she studied here in London at the RCM, and also with George Benjamin – a good pedigree!’ Songs From the Countryside has been composed for, and in collaboration with, Anu Komsi. ‘The words come from Lara’s grandmother and aunt, telling of their childhoods in remote Finland. Lara is interested in this kind of past and in our relationship to nature and the creatures we should be looking after.’
In tribute to the late Kaija Saariaho, Sakari Oramo will also conduct Mirage for soprano, cello and orchestra (with soloists Silja Aalto and Anssi Karttunen, a longstanding friend and collaborator of the composer) on 9 August. ‘Both Anu and I were close to Kaija. And Anu even more so because she commissioned both the Leino Songs and Saarikoski Songs and is their dedicatee. We go back such a long way, but this homage is not just personal or sentimental — the music is so good and deserves to be heard, not neglected as can happen when composers die.’
'I couldn't live without Sibelius'
Looking back over his decade with the BBC SO, Oramo cites a recent Sibelius symphony cycle they toured in Switzerland as a personal highlight. ‘I couldn’t live without Sibelius,’ he reflects. ‘I’ve been exposed to his music all my life in one way or another, yet I’m constantly finding new things in his works.
'I feel very inspired by Sibelius as a person. Not necessarily because he was a Finn – simply because he was a thinker of music.’ Although there was another factor that made those Swiss concerts special – ‘We were in great halls’ – he’s philosophical about the shortcomings of London’s venues and doesn’t allow himself to sound too envious even of Helsinki’s remarkable Musiikkitalo.
'There’s a lack of caring about the arts and for music here'
‘Sure, this is something every London orchestra feels, and there doesn’t seem to be any solution to the problem. There’s a lack of caring about the arts and for music here. I’m saying this a bit reluctantly because I still think London’s musical life is great. And it’s not to say there aren’t threats to the position of music in Helsinki. Just recently the Finnish ministry of culture proposed sweeping cuts over several years to the arts budget.’
Indeed, cuts both threatened and carried out at Finland’s national broadcaster, Yle, proved good practice for Sakari Oramo when the BBC dangled the sword last year, and he was reportedly tough and uncompromising in the BBC negotiations that followed. ‘There was no other way. I’m very insistent that the unique qualities of the BBC SO need to be recognised.
'But it was still a shock – I happened to be in Cologne for a concert on the day the threat was announced, and it came out of the blue, almost destroying my concert. Now the discussions have gained a more positive tone, and we are working with the new director, Bill Chandler, to be seen as the best orchestra in London, to prove ourselves through quality. In fact, we need to be the best radio orchestra in the world. Maybe we’re not yet, but we will be. I’m pretty sure about that.’