In Friday’s (5/15) New York Times, Zachary Woolfe writes about conductor Susanna Mälkki’s “wide appeal” on both sides of the Atlantic, with recent debuts “with both the Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras…. In the 2016-17 season she will arrive at the Metropolitan Opera with a high-profile debut assignment: the company premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s acclaimed L’Amour de Loin…. That is the same season she takes over as music director of her hometown Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra…. ‘The question is how much of your life you want to spend on an airplane,’ Ms. Malkki said of her jam-packed schedule…. Her first important conducting assignment was her diploma exam at [Finland’s Sibelius Academy] in 1999, when she conducted the Finnish premiere of Thomas Adès’s uproarious chamber opera Powder Her Face.… She made her debut with the Ensemble Intercontemporain in 2004…. She led the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra two years ago in a gripping, vital-yet-never-overwrought program of early pieces by Strauss, Debussy and Messiaen. She has also cultivated a wide repertory … adroitly avoiding being pigeonholed as a new-music specialist.… Not only has she been invited to appear with ensembles like the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, but—more tellingly—she has also been invited to return.”
Posted May 18, 2015
Pictured: Susanna Malkki leads the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Photo by Fred Stucker
