Cover Tarmo Peltokoski, the youngest Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra music director (Photo: courtesy of HKPhil)
Tarmo Peltokoski, the youngest Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra music director (Photo: courtesy of HKPhil)
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Tarmo Peltokoski takes up the baton as the youngest music director in the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra’s history. And he looks at the company’s future with glint in his eyes
Tarmo Peltokoski is a man of few words. At a Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra (HKPhil) press conference in early July, where his appointment as the orchestra’s music director designate for the 2025/26 season and music director in 2026/27 was announced, concertmaster Jing Wang remarked how rare and interesting it was to see someone as young as Peltokoski, 24, take on such a role. Peltokoski, clad in a simple dark grey suit and rectangular, black-framed glasses, responded in a blunt tone, “I’m only getting older, and better, I hope. That’s really all I have to say.”
When he’s onstage, however, his emotional expressiveness seems to belong to a completely different person. In the season finale on the day after the press conference, he hopped onto the conductor’s podium, picked up his baton from the stand, and then lowered his head, as if summoning the mood for Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s intense Second Piano Concerto (1913). The whole hall fell silent.
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Then he lifted his head. His eyes locked onto the viola section, but the rest of his body remained still. The musicians immediately readied their bows. Standing with his legs shoulder-width apart, he swept his arms from one side to the other. Occasionally, he tossed his baton from his right hand to his left. Sometimes, he leaned back and bent his knees to a 90-degree angle—a signal to the orchestra to decrescendo. At other times, he waltzed a little on the podium in enjoyment. Despite his somewhat theatrical movements, Peltokoski exudes an air of sternness of a serious musician. The second piece of the evening was Gustav Mahler’s orchestral composition Symphony Number 5. Peltokoski conducted both pieces without a score, leaving the podium free for him to move around on.
Above South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho and Tarmo Peltokoski at HKPhil’s 2023/24 season finale in July this year (Photo: courtesy of HKPhil)
South Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho and Tarmo Peltokoski at HKPhil’s 2023/24 season finale in July this year (Photo: courtesy of HKPhil)
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Peltokoski’s predecessor, 63-year-old Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden, led both the HKPhil for 12 years and the 182-year-old New York Philharmonic for six years before his departure to Seoul for a new tenure this year. It was also under Van Zweden’s leadership that the HKPhil won the Gramophone Orchestra of the Year Award in 2019 for its recording of Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle with classical record label Naxos, making it the first Asian orchestra to receive this accolade. The young Finn has big shoes to fill.
“The orchestra is in excellent shape,” Peltokoski told Tatler by email in August when he was at home in Helsinki. “Together, we will find more new paths and develop [our work] even further, mostly through repertoire.” When he officially becomes the music director in two years’ time, he plans to add music by English musicians—including “one of my absolutely favourite composers, Vaughan Williams”—to the HKPhil’s repertoire, which already includes Wagner, Mahler, Bruckner, Shostakovich and occasionally his compatriot Sibelius. He also wants to introduce the city to more Finnish music (he is of Finnish ancestry on his father’s side and Filipino ancestry on his mother’s) and is keen to explore Hong Kong composers.
Above A young Peltokoski with his tutor Jorma Panula (Photo: courtesy of Peltokoski)
A young Peltokoski with his tutor Jorma Panula (Photo: courtesy of Peltokoski)
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His vision and musical preferences reflect an old soul—when asked if he is a fan of any pop artists, he replies, “[Beyond classical music,] I have the utmost respect for jazz musicians and also enjoy the occasional dose of film music.”
His predilection can perhaps be explained by Finland’s musical education background that he grew up in, which he describes as “excellent”. “The orchestras’ programming, especially in Helsinki, is very adventurous. It includes loads of contemporary [orchestral] music,” alongside the classical, he says. “The Helsinki Music Centre is always full, even when the programme is considered ‘difficult’. This is something I really dream of for Hong Kong as well.” He observes that the HKPhil’s appeal “is already great, with lots of young people” attending; he believes an important next step is reaching full house at every concert, regardless of the popularity of the programme.
While his family isn’t particularly musical, his grandmother, who was a singing teacher and the only member of the family involved in the industry, had a piano in her home, which he started playing for fun at the age of eight. When he was 11, Peltokoski came across a two-minute YouTube clip of the ending of Wagner’s 1876 opera Siegfried. He was mesmerised by the melody, and says that hearing the music cemented his dream to be a conductor.
“At that moment, of course, I had no idea what I had experienced,” he says. “Slowly, I learnt more about the Wagner phenomenon, but [even now] it’s still quite mysterious,” he says of the effect of the composer’s music on him. “Wagner really seems to choose certain people—or perhaps some of us are just more easily affected by the drug.”
Above Tarmo Peltokoski at a rehearsal (Photo: courtesy of HKPhil)
Tarmo Peltokoski at a rehearsal (Photo: courtesy of HKPhil)
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Realising his son’s affinity for music, Peltokoski’s father contacted renowned Finnish composer and conductor Jorma Panula, who took the then 14-year-old on as a private conducting student for four years. Peltokoski would go on to study at the Helsinki Conservatory of Music and the Sibelius Academy.
There, he was taught by Sakari Oramo, the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Finnish pianist Antti Hotti. He has been recognised for his piano playing at competitions such as the German Rheingau Music Festival, where he won the Lotto prize in 2022 for emerging artists, and appeared as a soloist with orchestras across his homeland.
His career took flight during the pandemic when, ironically, live music performances came to a halt. In 2020, when the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen couldn’t deliver concerts, it invited him to rehearse with the orchestra as a guest conductor thanks to the recommendation of famed Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto and jazz pianist Iiro Rantala, both friends of Peltokoski who had played with the German ensemble. When the lockdown eased in 2021, the orchestra gave the then 21-year-old Peltokoski a chance to conduct a concert. It was such a success that, in 2022, the orchestra awarded him the title of principal guest conductor.
In the same year, Peltokoski was named music and artistic director of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, with which he conducted Siegfried, and music director of the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse; in 2023, he added principal guest conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonisch Orkest to his CV.
Above Tarmo Peltokoski (Photo: courtesy of HKPhil)
Tarmo Peltokoski (Photo: courtesy of HKPhil)
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In May this year, Peltokoski released his debut album, a recording of three Mozart symphonies recorded with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, which he conducted, in 2023 and received the Young Talent of the Year award from Opus Klassik, Germany’s foremost classical music prize, for it.
His journey to Hong Kong began with David Cogman, chairman of the HKPhil’s board of governers, who attended a concert with the Orchestra Philharmopnique de Radio France, which Peltokoski performed with, in November 2022. “From the moment he lifted the baton, you could see the connection between him and the orchestra. You could feel how much the orchestra enjoyed playing with him,” Cogman recalled in the HKPhil press conference in July. “When [Tarmo and I] talked over lunch [after his concert, I saw that] the passion he has for his work and his depth of understanding of music was just remarkable. I knew that I had to find some way to bring this brilliant conductor to Hong Kong.” Peltokoski made his Hong Kong debut in June 2023.
When it was time to look for a replacement for Van Zweden, Peltokoski’s name came up as a strong candidate: “In Tarmo, we see the person who will stretch the orchestra with repertoire both new and old, and who will bring the orchestra to great concert halls and festivals in the world,” said Cogman. Peltokoski sees his joining the Hong Kong company as coming full circle. It was Wagner who planted the seed of conducting in him, and Wagner remains important to his conducting career. Joining HKPhil, which has the experience of performing and recording Wagner, is “a definite luxury” to him. “Studio recordings of the Ring are extremely rare nowadays, so I have the utmost respect for the orchestra and Naxos to have gone through with this mammoth task,” he says.
Of his “beloved Wagner”, he says his “interpretations will probably change over the course of time—let’s see in which direction”—a fitting statement also for the music he has planned for the HKPhil.
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Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
