Klaus Makela was hired Tuesday to replace Riccardo Muti as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, making him the youngest Kapellmeister since its founding in 1891.
Finnish Makela, who turned 28 in January, has had a remarkable rise in the music world, becoming principal guest conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2018-19 and principal of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in 2020-21. He became conductor and music director of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Orchester de Paris 2021-22. He will begin a five-year term as principal conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in the Netherlands in 2027-2028, after his contracts in Norway and France expire.
Mr. Makela has been named CSO Music Director effective immediately and will begin a five-year term in 2027-2028, conducting for a minimum of 14 weeks per season. Makela will be the youngest American music director of a major orchestra since Gustavo Dudamel took over the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009, when he was 28 years old.
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“That’s not something I even thought about,” Makela said in an interview with The Associated Press. “When I started working in Amsterdam, I remembered that I was actually not young at all. (Willem) Mengelberg was 24 when he started.”
Klaus Makela, 28, has been hired as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s new music director and is expected to take over in 2027. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Muti served as music director for 13 seasons before resigning last summer before his 82nd birthday. When Mr. Makela takes up his post on September 1, 2027, he will be 31 years, seven months, and 16 days old. The youngest Kapellmeister to date was Frederick Stock, who was appointed on April 11, 1905, at the age of 32 years, 5 months, and 1 day. He succeeds founding music director Theodore Thomas.
Makela will be taking over an orchestra that is much older than he is. Of the 93 commissioners, Muti appointed 32, Daniel Barenboim 28, and most of the rest were appointed by Georg Solti. Principal trombone Jay Friedman and harpist Lynn Turner were hired by Fritz Reiner, who was music director from 1953 to 1962.
“What I like about the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is that there’s still a good deal of it that still sounds the same as it did with Reiner,” Makela said.
He led the CSO for the first time in April 2022 on a program that included Stravinsky’s “The Firebird.”
“When you conduct an orchestra for the first time, it’s a chemistry somehow,” Makela said. “Well, I felt like this orchestra was willing to go with me to places I wouldn’t have gone with other orchestras.”
CSO Chairman Jeff Alexander attended the first rehearsal.
“I said, ‘Good morning. Let’s start,’ and immediately got into the music,” Alexander recalled in a joint interview. “Very often the guest conductor keeps talking about the piece, but I think the musicians were grateful to just get down to business. So I stayed for about the first 10 or 15 minutes. But I can tell you that I already felt like there was something really special happening. “
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Makela returned in February 2023 for Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. So Alexander began negotiations. The announcement comes ahead of Makela’s performances with the CSO this week, including Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony.
“When you watch Krauss conduct, you can feel and feel a great connection between him and the orchestra, and there is also a connection between him and the audience,” Alexander said.
Mr. Makela’s hiring comes at a time when podium vacancies are imminent at several of the nation’s major educational institutions, including the Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Makela’s role as music director of a U.S. orchestra also includes a fundraising component.
“I don’t think it’s actually that dramatically different from working in Amsterdam or Paris,” he said. “In Oslo, 100% of the funding comes from the state and zero private funding, but in Amsterdam it’s already 50-50 and there’s a lot of work to do. And that’s very interesting to me as well. If we can find the right partnership, we can do things together. ”
Makela played the cello as a child. His father was a cello teacher and his mother a piano instructor. He remembers attending a concert by Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu in Helsinki, and decided on his future profession at the age of seven, performing Bizet’s “Carmen” in the children’s choir of the Finnish National Opera. sang. He was transfixed watching the conductor on a backstage monitor.
“It sounds crazy, but it’s so true, from that moment on,” Makela said.
While studying cello at the Sibelius Academy, he took conducting classes with Jorma Panula, whose students included Esa-Pekka Salonen and Susanna Marchi. He was first selected as cellist of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of 15, after which he was asked to conduct. He first conducted the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra in May 2018 and has since made a number of debuts. He will make his first appearance with the Berlin Philharmonic in April 2023 and will make his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic in December of this year. Decca Classics has signed him as an exclusive recording artist in 2021, which is unusual for classical music in the 21st century.
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Mr. Makela, who was busy working with symphonies, typically stayed for one to two months, and found little time for opera.
He lives in Helsinki, but he didn’t go there until the end of March this year. Makela spends most of his time in Paris and Oslo and can see it taking time to get his score in the right places.
“I always use FedEx, DHL and UPS, but of course I always forget the score,” he said. “When I write something, I want to have my own score.”
He’s already thinking about his first program in Chicago.
“It has to be a very clear start, a clear new chapter,” he said. “The music needs to keep both me and the orchestra at least a little bit on edge, because it needs to be everything outside of our comfort zone.”
