Klaus Mäkelä

Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä has held the position of Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic since 2020 and Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris since September 2021. As Artistic Partner to the Concertgebouworkest since 2022 he will assume the title of Chief Conductor in 2027. He opened his fourth season in Oslo with Thomas Larcher’s Symphony No. 2 and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4. Additional season highlights include Shostakovich Symphony No. 7, Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle” and Brahms’ “Double Concerto”, in which Mäkelä conducts and plays cello alongside violinist Daniel Lozakovich. For his third season as Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, Klaus Mäkelä is honouring Stravinsky’s “Ballets Russes” presented at both the Festival d’Aix and in Paris with nearly twenty concerts, and a recording of Stravinsky's “Petrushka”, “Jeux” and Debussy’s “L'Après-midi d'un faune“ for Decca Classics. Other highlights include performances of recent works by Unsuk Chin and Anna Thorvaldsdottir and the French premiere of Miroslav Srnka's “Superorganisms”. For his second season as artistic partner of the Concertgebouworkest, Klaus Mäkelä leads six programmes in 2023–2024, including Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”, de Falla’s “Nights in the Gardens of Spain” and Hawar Tawfiq’s “The Imagination of M.C. Escher”. He also conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 5 as part of a cycle celebrating the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth. As a cellist, Mäkelä partners with members of the Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris and Concertgebouworkest for occasional programmes, and each summer he performs at the Verbier Festival in chamber music concerts with fellow artists. An exclusive Decca Classics artist, he has recorded “The Firebird” and “The Rite of Spring” with the Orchestre de Paris and the complete Sibelius Symphonies with the Oslo Philharmonic.