The London Philharmonic Orchestra announced Tuesday that Paavo Järvi will succeed Edward Gardner as chief conductor beginning with the 2028-29 season, when Gardner’s current contract ends.
Järvi, 63, was born in Estonia into a musical dynasty. His father, Neeme, is also a conductor and his younger brother, Kristjan, is also. The family moved to the United States in 1980 and Järvi studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute with Leonard Bernstein.
Over the course of a storied career, he has worked with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Malmö Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, NHK Tokyo Symphony and the Orchester de Paris, where he was music director from 2010 to 2016.
He has been artistic director of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen for more than two decades. In 2011 he founded the Pärnu music festival and its resident Estonian Festival Orchestra, and since 2019 he has been chief conductor of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich. Järvi, a regular visitor to the UK with these orchestras and as guest conductor of the Philharmonic and the LPO, said it was a New Year’s 2025 tour to China with the orchestra that confirmed their chemistry for him.
“When I directed the LPO for the first time, it was immediately obvious that we were a good fit, that there was energy. Normally I try not to work during Christmas and New Year, but when they asked me to direct them on the tour I accepted because I understood that this was something very special,” he said.
“I grew up listening to recordings of this wonderful historic orchestra,” he said. “They’ve been famous in our house since I was a kid.”
He is looking forward to integrating himself into the UK music world, which he knows well: he has had a home in the capital for 30 years, as well as bases in the United States and Estonia. “London’s classical music scene is like nowhere else in the world, nothing compares to it. There is so much richness and an incredible offering of great music and musicians.”
He acknowledged the challenges that all classical musicians face today in terms of building audiences and challenging assumptions that this music is “difficult” or “elitist.” “We are all missionaries of our art form; more than ever it needs strong promotion and exposure.”
Collaborations with DJs, rock musicians and midnight concerts are among the initiatives he has participated in with his other orchestras. “There’s an incredible variety of things we’re constantly trying. Some are more successful than others, but we’ll keep trying.” He added that this should not be done at the expense of diminishing or simplifying the actual music. “But people generally don’t grow up listening to classical music, our job is to find ways to bring it to the surface.”
While it is too early to reveal details of programming with the LPO, he knows that his advocacy for the music of his homeland and its contemporary composers will figure in his plans. “I commission four or five pieces a year from Estonian composers… we will definitely program Estonian music, new and old. But also British music – there is such a lively and important new music scene in the UK that there will be plenty of choice.”
This is an orchestra, he said, that can play anything very well.
These are sentiments echoed by Edward Gardner, chief conductor since 2021. “I have never met an orchestra that can assimilate such a variety of styles,” he said. “The LPO has the ability to change things with completely different repertoire, from Mozart to modern, with everything in between, and always with such openness and kindness.”
Gardner still has more than two years left in the position and many projects to come with the orchestra; April’s semi-staged Wozzeck is one of the most anticipated events of the Southbank Crowds festival. “It’s strange to be talking (about my departure) so far in advance, but we wanted to make the announcement now so that the wonderful musicians of the LPO know that they have a musician of Paavo’s quality coming for the next era,” he said.
Gardner is currently preparing a Ring cycle with the Norwegian National Opera, of which he is musical director. “I felt there was a bottleneck of projects coming up and it simply wouldn’t be fair for an orchestra of the stature and brilliance of the LPO to not have my full commitment.”
The LPO was founded by Sir Thomas Beecham in 1932 and is today one of the resident orchestras of London’s Southbank Centre. It has been the resident symphony orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival since 1964 and also performs in Brighton, Eastbourne and Saffron Walden, as well as touring internationally.
London audiences and musicians will have the chance to see the chemistry in action on Wednesday: Järvi will conduct a program of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius at the Royal Festival Hall on March 4.
