Klaus Mäkelä
conductor
Klaus Mäkelä, born in 1996, causes a sensation worldwide with spectacular concerts, and has established himself in recent years as one of the most successful conductors of his generation. The Finnish musician has been chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra since autumn 2020 and music director of the Orchestre de Paris since 2021. In 2027, with an overflowing schedule, the musician will take up his post as the eighth chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, as whose artistic partner he began a long-term collaboration in the 2022/23 season.
Klaus Mäkelä comes from a musical family – his mother is a pianist, his father a cellist – and studied cello at the Sibelius Academy in his home town of Helsinki under Marko Ylönen, Timo Hanhinen and Hannu Kiiski. As a cellist, he has made guest appearances with many of the major Finnish symphony orchestras and has performed as a chamber musician with members of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. He completed his conducting studies with the legendary “maestro-maker” Jorma Panula, who has already led conductors such as Hannu Lintu, Susanna Mälkki, Sakari Oramo, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Osmo Vänskä to international success. At the age of twenty, Klaus Mäkelä was already conducting many first-class Scandinavian orchestras, with invitations from the rest of Europe, the USA and Japan soon following. In addition to his prestigious principal positions, Klaus Mäkelä works with top international ensembles such as the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, the London Philharmonic and the orchestras in Chicago, Cleveland and San Francisco. His broad repertoire ranges from works of the Baroque era and music from the Classical and Romantic periods to the present: “What is very important to me,” he says, “is precise stylistic work: after all, every composer has to be played differently.”
