Esa Heikkila - Conductor
The Finnish conductor, Esa Heikkilä, will become Chief Conductor of the Joensuu City Orchestra (Joensuun Kaupunginorkesteri) in Finland from January 2008 and Artistic Director of the Riihimäki Summer Concerts Festival also in 2008, adding these appointments to his positions as Artistic Director of Symphony Orchestra Vivo (Finland’s national youth orchestra) and as Senior Lecturer for Orchestra and Chamber Music at Lahti Polytechnic’s Faculty of Music. He passed his final Sibelius Academy conducting diploma concert in March 2004 with the highest possible mark. He already counts Sinfonia Lahti, the Turku Philharmonic, Tampere Philharmonic and Oulu Philharmonic orchestras, the Jyväskylä Symphony Orchestra, Joensuu City Orchestra, Kymi Sinfonietta, Pori Sinfonietta, Lappeenranta City Orchestra and Mikkeli City Orchestra and he is now being asked to conduct nearly all Finland’s orchestras in concert and recordings as well as acting as assistant to Leif Segerstam in Germany and Lithuania, Mikko Franck with the Belgian National Orchestra and with Osmo Vänskä several times with Sinfonia Lahti. Outside Finland he has conducted the Haapsalu Festival Orchestra in Estonia for two years and made successful débuts with the Norrköpings Symfoniorkester, Ulster Orchestra in Belfast, Iceland Symphony Orchestra and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders. He was immediately re-invited to the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra after making his début with them when he conducted them in February 2006, by the BBC in Northern Ireland after first working there in January 2007 and he returns to Iceland for a third time in October 2007. He has conducted Sinfonia Lahti in symphonies by Shostakovich and Holst’s “Planets”, has been re-engaged by the BBC in August 2008 and makes his US debut with the Minnesota Orchestra in January 2008.
One of the remarkable aspects of Esa Heikkilä’s career has been his acceptance as a mature student into Leif Segerstam’s conducting class at the Sibelius Academy having earlier started his conducting studies with Osmo Vänskä. Born in 1962, his outstanding talent as a conductor had already been recognised in Finland when he began the course in 2001 at the age of 37 in this famous academy. He had earlier begun his musical career as a violinist in the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra then the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra before becoming a violin section leader in Sinfonia Lahti. He has performed as a soloist with several Finnish orchestras and frequently played as a chamber musician at many festivals in Finland, also making chamber music recordings for the BIS label amongst others.
Esa Heikkilä has been in the foreground during Sinfonia Lahti’s meteoric, well-deserved rise during the last ten years, using his responsible position in the orchestra to closely study the front rank conductors attracted there by its growing reputation. His core conducting repertoire reflects that of the orchestra with an emphasis on the music of Sibelius and many other Nordic composers, ranging from Rautavaara, Sallinen, Aho and Pärt to Englund, Klami, Alfvén, etc., through the Russian school of composers to a central repertoire of orchestral music that also encompasses some choral, opera and ballet scores.
August 2007