Read on for an introduction to the acclaimed conductor, and former BBC Music Magazine Personality of the Year, Dalia Stasevska.
- Dalia was Personality of the Year in our 2023 Awards. Here are all the 2023 winners, and here are the 2024 winners
Who is Dalia Stasevska?
Finnish conductor Dalia Stasevska became a household name when she led the BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) at the Last Night of the Proms in 2020, an extraordinary year to take the reins of a leading orchestra. Faced with an empty concert hall, no audience and just a few cameras broadcasting live across the world, Stasevska led the orchestra in the biggest event in the UK’s classical music calendar. She had made her Proms debut the year before in her first public performance with the orchestra in this position.
That’s not the only big Proms gig Dalia has led. In 2023 she led the BBC SO for the First Night of the Proms, in a programme including Edvard Grieg‘s Piano Concerto and Benjamin Britten‘s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra.
Which orchestras has she conducted?
In 2019, Dalia Stasevska became the youngest person – and first woman – to be given a titled conducting position at the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
In May 2020, she was announced as the new chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra in her native Finland.
She has previously conducted the Philharmonia, Orchestra of the Opera North, Los Angeles Philharmonic (one of the world’s best orchestras), Oslo Philharmonic and Gothenburg Symphony.
What’s she conducting at the 2024 BBC Proms?
Dalia and the BBC Symphony Orchestra look in for Prom 45 (Sat 24 August), which features a UK premiere of the Symphony No. 2 by American composer Julius Eastman and Sibelius’s joyous, uplifting Symphony No. 5. They are also joined by American mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton for Mahler‘s Rückert-Lieder song cycle.
Head elsewhere on our site for a full list of all the 2024 BBC Proms. And here are profiles of some of this year’s major Proms performers.
Is Dalia Stasevska married?
Yes – to Finnish composer and musician Lauri Porra. He is the bassist for Finnish power metal band Stratovarius – and is also the great-grandson of composer Jean Sibelius. Stasevska and Porra had their first child in 2023.
How old is Dalia Stasevska?
She was born on 30 December 1984.
Where is Dalia Stasevska from?
Dalia Stasevska was born in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Stasevska’s childhood spanned three countries. She never really knew Ukraine, and has only visited her country of birth five or six times in her life. Shortly after she was born, her family – who excelled in the visual arts and sciences rather than music – emigrated first to Tallinn in Estonia, then (when she was five) to Helsinki and finally Tampere in southwest Finland. ‘My father remarried, to a Finnish woman, so Finland is basically my home country,’ she reflects.
If they were thinking of the young Dalia as a future international conducting superstar – which they were certainly not – the family could not have chosen a better country in which to raise her. By the time she started studying the violin at school, Finland was already producing a stream of superbly characterful conductors, singers, instrumentalists and composers whose impact on the musical world was far out of proportion to the size of Finland’s 5.5 million population.
And where did she study?
Stasevska studied at the Royal Swedish Academy with Jormu Panula and at the Sibelius Academy with Leif Segerstam, and later went on to work assistant conductor to Esa-Pekka Salonen and Paavo Järvi.
She was studying violin at the renowned Sibelius Academy in Helsinki when she was suddenly struck by the desire to become a conductor. ‘I was a second-year student when, for the first time, I saw a female conductor – someone who actually looked like me. “Wait a minute!” I thought. “Maybe I can do that too.”’
She was in the right place to try. The Sibelius Academy has a unique conducting course devised by the legendary Jorma Panula. Just turned 90, he is the teacher who trained Esa-Pekka Salonen, Osmo Vänskä, Sakari Oramo, just about every other distinguished Finnish conductor. ‘He created this fantastic system by saying, quite simply, that to train as a conductor you need an orchestra,’ Stasevska says. ‘So every Friday and Saturday the conducting students have three hours in front of an orchestra of their fellow students. It’s a genius idea because you educate conductors and future orchestral musicians at the same time, and each generation develops hand in hand.’
Who are Finland’s other famous conductors?
For a relatively small country, Finland has been astonishingly polific in turning out top-tier conductors, and Dalia Stasevska is very far from being her country’s lone representative in this field. The established current generation includes conductors John Storgårds, Susanna Mälkki, and Sakari Oramo. who’s currently chief conductor at the BBC Symphony Orchestra and, as such, a familair face at the BBC Proms. Also on the list of distinguished current Finns are Osmo Vänskä, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Anna-Maria Helsing (current chief conductor at the BBC Concert Orchestra), Pietari Inkinen, Hannu Lintu, and Juka-Pekka Saraste.
Illustrious conductors from previous generations include Paavo Berglund, who served for many years as chief conductor at the Bournemouth Symphony orchestra and conducted no fewer than three acclaimed cycles of the Sibelius symphonies. Also of note were Robert Kajanus (who knew Sibelius and championed his work) and Okko Kamu.
Other breakthrough Finnish conductors of Dalia Stasevska’s generation include Klaus Mäkelä, chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic and music director of the Orchestre de Paris. He’s joined by Santtu-Matias Rouvali (currently principal conductor at the Philharmonia) and Tarmo Peltokoski, who’s recently taken on the chief conductor role at the Rotterdam Philharmonic.
Why is Finland so strong at classical music?
‘I think three things account for that,’ Stasevska says. ‘First, as a young country [Finland gained its independence only in 1917], I think people realised that they needed to put extra effort into nurturing the country’s culture. It was about making a national identity too.
‘Second, our education system puts music at the heart of the curriculum from elementary school onwards. And third, equality has always been an important thing in Finland, which meant equal musical possibilities, free of charge, for everyone.
‘For me, that was so important. We weren’t a wealthy family. Had we moved to, say, the United States my family would never have had the money to put a violin in my hands and pay for lessons, let alone send me to a conservatory.’
Dalia Stasevska albums
Stasevska has already recorded some fine albums. These include:
Brahms / Busoni Violin Concertos
Francesca Dego (violin); BBC Symphony Orchestra/Dalia Stasevska
Incisive readings by violinist Francesca Dego, of the lone violin concertos by Johannes Brahms and Ferruccio Busoni. Stasevska and the BBC SO lend superb support.
Helvi Leiviskä: Orchestral Works, Vol. 1
Three works by Finland’s first major female composer, who started off in a late Romantic idiom but moved on to more individual, almost Impressionist soundworlds.