The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has announced that Klaus Mäkelä is to be its next music director. The 28-year-old Finnish conductor will begin as the orchestra’s music director designate with immediate effect before beginning a five-year contract as music director in September 2027. His new position will see him commit to at least 14 weeks per year with the 133-year-old ensemble, one of the US’s famed ‘Big Five’ orchestras, in the same year that he also takes up the position of chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.
Taking on the Chicago baton is just the latest step up in what has been an extraordinarily rapid rise for Mäkelä, who began his career with studies under the famous conducting teacher Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. In December 2017, he was named, at just 21, the principal guest conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and within less than 12 months had added the post of the artistic director of the Turku Music Festival to his CV and – even more impressively – was named as the next chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic, beginning in 2020.
With the Oslo Philharmonic, Mäkelä has impressed both on stage and in the studio, not least with the Decca recording of Sibelius’s complete symphonies that was nominated for the Orchestral Award at the 2023 BBC Music Magazine Awards. In 2021, he also began as music director of the Orchestre de Paris, with whom he has recorded two albums of Stravinsky ballets, again for Decca. His tenure in Paris will coincide with the beginning of his contract in Chicago.
As with his other appointments, Mäkelä is not taking a step into the unknown with his move to Chicago, as he has previously guest conducted the orchestra twice. ‘I look forward to getting to know the musicians more over the coming years,’ he says, describing the CSO as ‘an orchestra that combines such brilliance, power and passion.’
His predecessors in the ‘Windy City’ are nothing if not prestigious. Founded in 1891, the CSO can name legends such as Rafael Kubelík, Fritz Reiner and Daniel Barenboim among the ten conductors to have held the post before Mäkelä. Perhaps most renowned, however, was Georg Solti, under whose tenure from 1969-91 the CSO enjoyed a golden era, crowned with Grammy Awards galore. Riccardo Muti, Mäkelä’s immediate predecessor, is now the CSO’s music director emeritus for life.
‘I am delighted with this outcome,’ says Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association president Jeff Alexander about their new signing. ‘As we got to know [Mäkelä] off the podium and witnessed – in addition to his extraordinary musical talent – his passion for the artform, keen interest in music education and the legacy of the CSO, and innate ability to connect warmly and sincerely with our trustees, volunteers, concert attendees, donors, and administrative staff, it quickly became clear that he was the ideal choice to lead the orchestra into the future.’