The Finnish conductor Pietari Inkinen is Chief Conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie since 2017, and Music Director of the KBS Symphony Orchestra in Seoul since 2022.
Praised for his “thinking on a grand scale”, Inkinen has conducted many of the world’s most notable orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic. The 2023/24 season marked his first appearances with The Cleveland Orchestra and the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where he led a production of Wagner’s Tannhäuser.
The music of Richard Wagner occupies a central position in Pietari Inkinen’s work. In 2023 he conducted Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival (directed by Valentin Schwarz). Already in the summer of 2021, amidst the pandemic restrictions, he conducted three performances of Die Walküre on the Green Hill. His acclaimed performances of the Ring Cycle with Opera Australia in 2013 and 2016 brought Inkinen two awards: Australia’s Helpmann Awards in 2014 for Best Music Direction and a Green Room Award for Best Opera Conductor in 2016. He was also awarded Italy ́s National Association of Music Critics ́ Franco Abbiati Prize for best show, for his 2014 Rheingold, which he conducted in the Palermo’s Teatro Massimo.
Other opera productions have taken him to the Finnish National Opera, La Monnaie in Brussels, Staatsoper in Berlin, the Bavarian State Opera and Dresden Semperoper where he conducted a highly successful new production of Eugene Onegin.
Pietari Inkinen was chief conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Ludwigsburg Schlossfestspiele. His long collaboration with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra dates back to 2009, he led the ensemble first in the capacity of Principal Guest Conductor, and between 2016-2023, as Chief Conductor. While Music Director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, he recorded a complete cycle of the Sibelius symphonies for Naxos and a further live Sibelius cycle recorded with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in Suntory Hall. With the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, he is working on studio recordings of Dvořák’s and Prokofiev’s complete symphonies. (SWRmusic/Naxos). His work has been the subject of a 2023 documentary directed by Sven Rech, Ein Taktstock und ein Reisepass -Pietari Inkinen Dirigent.
Inkinen is also an accomplished violinist. He studied at the Cologne Music Academy with Zakhar Bron before taking further studies in conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.