Hyperion Records

In September 1998 Sakari Oramo took up the post of Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. This highly successful appointment has now resulted in the new title of Music Director, a position which he has held since September 1999.<.p>

During his two seasons with the CBSO Sakari Oramo has taken the orchestra on tour to Paris, Cologne, Amsterdam, Spain, the Schleswig Holstein Festival, Romania, Helsinki, Tallinn and Tartu. His programmes reflect his Finnish origins, as well as exploring the English tradition through composers such as Bax, Bridge, Britten, Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Walton and Constant Lambert.

An accomplished violinist, Sakari Oramo was concertmaster of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra when he enrolled in Jorma Panula’s conducting class at the Sibelius Academy in 1989. In 1993, one year after completing his course, Oramo replaced an ailing conductor at very short notice. The resulting concert was an unprecedented success and Oramo’s appointment as Co-Principal Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony was announced shortly thereafter.

Since his conducting debut with the Finnish Radio Symphony, Oramo has conducted regularly in Finland and also throughout Scandinavia with many prestigious orchestras including the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Danish Radio Symphony and the Helsinki Philharmonic orchestras. Appearances elsewhere include NDR-Hamburg, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Hessischer Rundfunk and the Berlin Philharmonic.

Sakari Oramo has a number of recordings to his credit, including music by early 20th-century Finnish composers, Klami and Pingoud, as well as more contemporary composers, Kaipainen and Lindberg.