‘The music-making positively blazes’ The Times
In the 2022/23 season Santtu-Matias Rouvali starts his second year as Principal Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra and continues as Chief Conductor of Gothenburg Symphony, alongside his longstanding Chief Conductor and Artistic Director position with Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra close to his home in Finland.

In summer 2022, Rouvali made his BBC Proms debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra, performing the European premiere of a new violin concerto, Procession, by Missy Mazzoli with Jennifer Koh, alongside extracts from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
Throughout this season, he continues his relationships with top level orchestras across Europe, including Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Münichner Philharmoniker, as well as returning to the New York Philharmonic for his annual visits. He works with soloists including Víkingur Ólafsson, Nemanja Radulović, Yuja Wang, Nicola Benedetti, Behzod Abduraimov, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Alice Sara Ott, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Vadim Gluzman, Randall Goosby, and Vilde Frang.
As well as concerts in London and the rest of the UK, Rouvali and the Philharmonia embark on a tour to Italy in September 2022, with music by Prokofiev and Sibelius. This is the first of many touring highlights this season with the Philharmonia, including trips to Spain, Germany and Hungary.

Rouvali continues to build on his discography, not only adding to Gothenburg Symphony’s impressive legacy, but also with his orchestras in London and at home in Tampere. In January 2019 with Gothenburg, he released a celebrated first disc of an ambitious Sibelius cycle, pairing the Symphony No.1 with the early tone poem En saga. The album won the Gramophone Editor’s Choice award, the Choc de Classica, a prize from the German Record Critics and the prestigious French Diapason d’Or ‘Decouverte’. In February 2020 they released the second volume, which features Sibelius’ Symphony No.2 and King Christian II, which has also been immediately awarded a Choc de Classica award. The third disc – Sibelius’ Symphonies Nos. 3, 5 & Pohjola’s Daughter – was released in October 2022 and awarded the Radio Classique ‘TROPHÉE’ the following month.

The Sunday Times commented that “Thanks to conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali’s overall shaping and a rhythmic precision that nevertheless leaves the composer’s characteristically fluid phrases intact, the Gothenburg players’ performance, beautifully balanced and characterfully coloured, is powerfully cogent.”

In 2020 his first Philharmonia CD, a live recording of excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, was released by Signum Records, followed by another live recording of Prokofiev No.5, released in early 2021. With Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra and violinist Baiba Skride, he has recorded five concertos on the Orfeo label: Nielsen, Sibelius, Bernstein, Korngold and Rózsa.