Two generations ago, Hungary produced a wildly disproportionate share of the world’s leading conductors: Georg Solti, George Szell, Eugene Ormandy, Antal Dorati, Fritz Reiner, Ferenc Fricsay.
In our time, Finland has become a comparably fertile seedbed of internationally prominent maestri: Esa-Pekka Salonen, Osmo Vänskä, Sakari Oramo, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Klaus Mäkelä, Susanna Mälkki, Hannu Lintu, and now, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, the 35-year-old timpanist-turned-conductor beginning his tenure as chief conductor of Britain’s Philharmonia Orchestra.
Not your stereotypical European maestro, Imogen Tilden finds in an interview with Rouvali for The Guardian:
Letter V 