PERTTI PEKKANEN
Conductor
 His long career as a conductor has taken Pertti Pekkanen to concert halls and opera houses not only in Finland but the world over. Spread before him on his music stand has been everything possible: operas and symphonies both early and contemporary, and often also works in lighter vein.
For twelve years Chief Conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra (1974-1986), Pertti Pekkanen last skippered the crew for the two Verdi galas in October 2004 dedicated to him by the Orchestra as a tribute to him on his 60th birthday. All in all Pekkanen has conducted the TPO an unbelievable 358 times, not including The Flying Dutchman! He also played a leading part in the founding of the Chorus Cathedralis Aboensis in 1982.
Pertti Pekkanen qualified as a conductor at the Sibelius Academy in 1972, having studied with Tauno Hannikainen, Simon Parmet and Jorma Panula, and in Austria with Hans Swarowsky. In 1972 he was one of the semi-finalists in the Karajan Competition in Berlin.
Assistant Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra 1973-1974, Pekkanen was Acting Professor of orchestral conducting at the Sibelius Academy 1987-1988 (after his 12 years with the TPO), Principal Conductor of the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra 1989-1991 and thereafter conductor of the Lappeenranta and Vaasa City Orchestras. He made his operatic debut in 1978, conducting the Turku Opera Association production of Mozart's Così fan tutte. Here in Turku he has since conducted the operetta The Gypsy Baron (Johann Strauss) and the operas Martha (von Flotov), Dido and Aeneas (Purcell), Un ballo in maschera, Un giorno di regno and La Traviata (Verdi), Carmen and The Pearl Fishers (Bizet), Orpheus in the Underworld (Offenbach), L'elisir d'amore (Donizetti) and Ulstadius (Esa Pethman). Since 1984 he has also conducted at the Finnish National Opera (Carmen, Madetoja's The Ostrobothnians, the world premiere of Aho's Insect Life, Kokkonen's The Last Temptations). In 1999-2000 he conducted Verdi's La forza del destino at the Savonlinna Opera Festival. At Tampere Opera he has conducted The Queen of Spades (Tchaikovsky), The Flying Dutchman (Wagner), Manon Lescaut (Puccini) and Kokkonen's The Last Temptations, also on tour at the Prague National Theatre in June this year.
With the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra Pertti Pekkanen has recorded the Symphony no. 1 by Einar Englund, and a Christmas disc by Karita Mattila in 2002 that qualified for a platinum in 2003.
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