Profile | Meet the Filipino-Finnish conductor who will lead HK Phil: the opera that inspired him, his mentor, and why one work is a must-perform in Hong Kong
- Tarmo Peltokoski, 23, decided it would be his life’s mission to conduct after watching a two-minute YouTube clip featuring the ending of Wagner’s Siegfried
- He says he had to add Sibelius’ Finlandia to the Hong Kong Philharmonic’s 2022/23 season finale programme to balance the works by Russian composers
A whole lifetime is sometimes not long enough to find one’s calling. But for Tarmo Peltokoski, the 23-year-old Filipino-Finnish conductor who will lead the Hong Kong Philharmonic in its 2022/23 season finale, the moment of epiphany came when he was just 11.
“After playing the piano for three years, I discovered Wagner through a two-minute YouTube clip. It was the ending of Siegfried. At that moment I decided that it would be my life’s mission, so to say, to conduct,” he tells the Post.
In a mere 12 years since he watched that video, he will conduct the same Wagner piece for the second time, in Latvia in July.
He first conducted it in 2022, part of his first full “Ring Cycle” – a group of four individual operas composed by Wagner that includes Siegfried – a feat he achieved at the Eurajoki Bel Canto Festival in Finland.
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Peltokoski credits Finland’s music infrastructure for his early success, and in particular his mentor Jorma Panula, a central figure in Finnish conducting who has trained a myriad of highly acclaimed Finnish conductors.
“Jorma has always wanted to give chances to really young musicians whom he sees potential in. That’s the reason why a lot of conductors come from Finland still to this very day,” Peltokoski says.
“I got the chance to try conducting at 14 and I’m very lucky to be Finnish because otherwise that chance would have never been there.”
Peltokoski does not come from a family deeply steeped in music. His grandmother, who was a singing teacher, was the only one involved in the industry. She kept a piano at her home, which led him to start playing the instrument at the age of eight.
“I think that’s a good thing that I wasn’t forced to do anything. I found the piano myself and I wanted to do it myself. I played the piano very seriously and developed an interest in the orchestra and operatic music especially.”
When Peltokoski was 14 his father emailed Panula asking him if he would accept his son as a conducting student.
“For decades Jorma has held an annual master class in my hometown – the small town of Vaasa in western Finland,” Peltokoski says.
“I think initially Jorma answered no. But then we sent him some compositions and arrangements of mine. He took a brief look and said OK, the boy can try. After that, he just took care of me.”
He took private classes with Panula for the next four years until he entered the Sibelius Academy, Finland’s best musical school, in the capital Helsinki.
He pays tribute to his home country in the programme he has prepared for his Hong Kong debut, which begins with Sibelius’s Finlandia, a piece Peltokoski says is “the most Finnish thing in the world”.
The highly emotional orchestral score was composed by Sibelius in 1899 to invigorate Finns during their fight for independence against the then Russian empire.
I am also the first Finnish pianist-conductor. And none of the others are opera specialists. That’s what makes me different from all the other Panula students
Peltokoski says he made the late decision to include the piece because the other two works that make up the programme are by Russian composers: Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (featuring soloist Leonidas Kavakos) and Shostakovich’s Symphony No.10.
“Originally it was just meant to be these two pieces, which already make a fantastic programme. But to play Finlandia before the two pieces of Russian music means a lot to me, especially nowadays,” Peltokoski says, referring to the Russia-Ukraine war, which has driven Finland to end its neutral stance towards Russia.
What about his Filipino heritage? (His mother was born in the Philippines.)
“I eat a lot of rice. And I made my Asia debut in the Philippines in 2019, when I performed with the Manila Symphony Orchestra. My parents came.”
The young star, who calls Helsinki home, now regularly performs around the world. In 2022, he became the first principal guest conductor of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, in Germany. He was also chosen as the replacement for Valery Gergiev in a concert with the pianist Yuja Wang in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, after the Rotterdam Philharmonic terminated its relationship with the Russian conductor.
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Peltokoski is confident that he is carving out his own style despite acknowledging the heavy influence of his many Finnish colleagues.
“I consider all Finnish conductors as mentors in some sense. But once you really become a conductor in your own right, you can’t be replicating anyone,” he says.
“I am also the first Finnish pianist-conductor. And none of the others are opera specialists. That’s what makes me different from all the other Panula students.”
“Season Finale: Peltokoski & Kavakos”, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Concert Hall, June 30 and July 1, 8pm.
