Tarmo Peltokoski was hired Thursday to succeed Jaap van Zweden as music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic.
Peltokoski, at 24 far younger than most music directors, will start a four-year term in the 2026-27 season after serving as music director designate in 2025-26, the philharmonic said.
“I was just extremely impressed by the orchestra right away,” Peltokoski said. “Absolutely one of the best orchestras in Asia, for sure. So when the offer came, it was an easy yes for me.”
Peltokoski grew up in Finland and studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki with Jorma Panula, a famed 93-year-old conductor, composer and teacher whose students have included Esa-Pekka Salonen, Susanna Mälkki, Osmo Vänskä and Klaus Mäkelä.
“He wants to give the chance to young people, already established instrumentalists, to have the chance to conduct, which doesn’t really happen in other countries,” Peltokoski said. “So I’m extremely thankful for that. And secondly, he sees the potential and really nourishes those talents that he thinks are worth his time. And then thirdly, he wants people to be individuals and doesn’t force anything on anyone, so he really wants to keep every student’s strong personality there and make them even stronger.”
Just 28, Mäkelä was hired in April to succeed Riccardo Muti as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra starting in 2027-28.
Peltokoski's hiring marks a generational change in Hong Kong. Van Zweden became music director in the 2012-13 season and the 63-year-old conducted his farewell concert on June 26.
Peltokoski made his debut with the Hong Kong orchestra in June 2023 leading Sibelius’ “Finlandia,” Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony.
“It was not like a conductor/orchestra relationship. It was: We do music together,” chief executive Benedikt Fohr said. “He’s young but already has this intense experience on working on repertoire and a clear focus where he wanted to go in that week but also when you talk to him, where he wants to be in 10 years.”
Peltokoski started piano studies at 8 and decided he wanted to become a conductor after seeing clips of the Daniel Barenboim conducting the Wagner's “Der Ring des Nibelungen” at the 1988 Bayreuth Festival on YouTube. He asked his parents to buy him the DVD.
Peltokoski, who lives in Helsinki, has been music director of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra since 2022-23, an appointment that runs through the 2024-25 season. He becomes music director of France’s Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse in 2025-26.
Deutsche Grammophon signed him to an exclusive recording contract in October. He conducted Wagner’s Ring for the first time at age 22 at the Finland’s Eurajoki Bel Canto Festival in August 2022.
“My career starts in a very symphonic manner but long-term my plan is to move more in the opera direction,” he said.
Founded in 1947 as the Sino-British Orchestra, the ensemble was renamed the Hong Kong Philharmonic in 1957 and became fully professional in 1974. It presents about 150 concerts over a 44-week season.
Peltokoski is to guest conduct the orchestra on Friday and Saturday in Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto and Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and then open the 2024-25 season on Sept. 5 at the 1,971-seat Hong Kong Cultural Centre Concert Hall.
Fohr described Peltokoski as insistent as van Zweden but with a different method.
“The musicians feel he gives them a lot more freedom to achieve the common goal,” Fohr said, “where Jaap expects from everybody to be 100% following his speed and his instructions.”
This image released by the Hong Kong Philharmonic shows Tarmo Peltokoski, who was hired Thursday to succeed Jaap van Zweden as music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic. (Keith Hiro/Hong Kong Philharmonic via AP)
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — As President Joe Biden tries to revive his embattled reelection bid, Vice President Kamala Harris led a parade of Black Democrats who warned Saturday that the threat of another Donald Trump presidency remains the most important calculation ahead of November.
Yet in more than 20 minutes on stage at the Essence Festival of Culture, Harris did not acknowledge Biden’s dismal debate performance or calls for the 81-year-old president to end his reelection bid. In fact, she barely mentioned Biden at all – a stark contrast to the Congressional Black Caucus members who forcefully and repeatedly defended the president by name.
“This is probably the most significant election of our lifetime,” Harris said, before riffing on Trump musing about being a dictator, pushing the Supreme Court rightward and promising retribution on political enemies. “In 122 days, we each have the power to decide what kind of country we want to live in.”
Harris’s appearance at the nation’s largest annual celebration of Black culture underscores what a difficult task it is for the White House and campaign to navigate questions about the president’s aptitude. The dynamics are especially fraught for Harris, the first Black woman and person of south Asian descent to be elected vice president, and for the Black Democrats who were so instrumental in electing Biden and her in 2020.
On one hand, Harris fills the traditional role of loyal lieutenant, a job she did enthusiastically — and on the fly — in television appearances immediately after Biden’s lackluster debate ended. Yet should Biden ultimately decide to step aside as presumptive nominee, she would be among the favorites, if not the favorite, to carry the Democratic banner against Trump.
Black leaders and voters who gathered in New Orleans, meanwhile, walked the line Saturday between backing Biden and insisting that, if he does end his campaign, the party should elevate the barrier-breaking vice president rather than consider governors like Gavin Newsom of California or Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, both of whom are white.
“The purpose of a vice president is to be a No. 2, to be able to step in,” said Glynda Carr, who leads the Higher Heights political action organization that works to elect more Black women. “If this was an all-white male ticket, would we be talking about other people who have less experience, less qualifications?”
Antjuan Seawright, a Black Democratic consultant who is close to House Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Biden ally, put it more plainly. “Joe Biden isn’t going anywhere,” he said. But if he does, “anyone other than Kamala would be malpractice — and it would tear the party apart.”
Seawright argued that the pressure on Biden to step aside is coming only from white Democrats so far, at least publicly. He said that divide is mostly about Black voters’ trust in Biden and their recognition of his record. But he said it’s also about what’s good for the party as a whole, including Black politicians. Risking a contested convention, even one that nominates Harris, could ensure widespread losses, and in turn, make it less likely than ever to see Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries become Speaker or Harris or another Black woman sit in the Oval Office.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and her colleagues echoed some of those sentiments.
“People say Joe Biden’s too old. Hell, I’m older than Biden!” said the 85-year-old congresswoman. “It ain’t gonna be no other Democratic candidate, and we better know it.”
Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, played up the power Harris already holds.
“We got a Black vice president of the United States of America, a sister who came here to be with us today,” she said. “So, let’s not get it twisted. I know who I’m voting for. I’m with the Biden-Harris team, because we’re still going to have a sister in the White House fighting for us and making a difference.”
Waters said Biden’s support of Black communities and the contrast with Trump should be enough. She called the former president “a no-good, lying, despicable human being” with a white nationalist agenda. “Who the hell do you think he’s going to come after?” Waters asked, noting Trump’s support from groups like the Proud Boys. “You know he means business.”
In more than a dozen interviews with Essence attendees, opinions varied on Biden’s strength as a candidate and his abilities to serve another four years. But there was a clear consensus on several points: Only Biden can decide his fate; if he does step away, he should back Harris; and defeating Trump is the top priority.
“I’m with him, absolutely,” said Erica Peterson of New Orleans. “He’s delivered, and one debate is not going to change my mind. ... And if it’s not Joe Biden, I’m with her.”
Star Robert, a 37-year-old nurse in New York City, said if there’s a shift, then Biden and Democrats could not credibly choose anyone other than Harris, given that the president, party and voters already chose her as second-in-line. Still, she was skeptical about Harris’s prospects.
“I’m not sure that she’s done enough to generate the trust of enough voters,” Robert said. “I don’t know if that’s all her fault, I just haven’t seen enough of her, we haven’t. I don’t know what her angle is.”
Regardless, Robert added, “I’m not sure the country is ready for another Black president, and if we were ready for a woman, Hillary Clinton would have beaten the clown (Trump) the first time he ran.”
Harris, for her part, answered that kind of skepticism even as she studiously avoided the immediate campaign drama.
“People in your life will tell you it’s not your time. It’s not your turn. Nobody like you has done it before,” she said of being a woman of color in powerful circles. “I like to say that I eat ‘no’ for breakfast.”
Vice President Kamala Harris waves as she walks on stage during the 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans, Saturday, July 6, 2024. (Matthew Perschall/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with Essence CEO Caroline Wanga during the 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans, Saturday, July 6, 2024. (Matthew Perschall/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris, right, listens as Essence CEO Caroline Wanga speaks during the 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans, Saturday, July 6, 2024. (Matthew Perschall/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris laughs during a conversation with Essence CEO Caroline Wanga during the 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans, Saturday, July 6, 2024. (Matthew Perschall/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris, right, speaks with Essence CEO Caroline Wanga during the 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans, Saturday, July 6, 2024. (Matthew Perschall/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with Essence CEO Caroline Wanga during the 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture in New Orleans, Saturday, July 6, 2024. (Matthew Perschall/The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)
