The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra has today announced that 24-year-old Tarmo Peltokoski will become its music director from the 2026-27 season. He succeeds current director Jaap van Zweden.
The precocious Finnish conductor will also become music director of the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse in 2025. He was named principal guest conductor of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in January 2022 as well.
Tarmo Peltokoski made his debut with the Hong Kong Philharmonic at its 2022-23 Season Finale concert in June 2023. He is set to conduct the orchestra’s 2023-24 Season Finale, as well as its 2024-25 Season Opening at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre.
Peltokoski is ‘honoured and thrilled’
‘I am honoured and thrilled to be named music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, said Peltokoski. ‘After being highly impressed by the orchestra last year, I knew this would be a long-lasting relationship. The HK Phil is surely one of the absolute top orchestras in Asia.’
In addition to his appointments in Toulouse and Bremen, Tarmo Peltokoski is music director of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, a role he took up in 2022. He is also principal guest conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic. In October 2023, he signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon.
On 9 September, he will make his BBC Proms debut at the Royal Albert Hall, conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Shostakovich‘s Symphony No. 5 and Schoenberg‘s Violin Concerto with soloist Patricia Kopatchinskaja.
Tarmo Peltokoski’s fantastic former mentors
A former student of Sakari Oramo at the Sibelius Academy, Tarmo Peltokoski was also taught by Hannu Lintu, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Esa-Pekka Salonen. An acclaimed pianist, too, he studied at the Sibelius Academy with Antti Hotti.
Among the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s former conductors are Jaap van Zweden, Edo de Waart and David Atherton.