Maestro Arts to support Jukka-Pekka Saraste in touring and leadership work

Maestro Arts has formed a new partnership with conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste to develop his innovative leadership scheme LEAD! alongside his orchestral touring work.

Saraste, currently serving as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, has shown a consistent commitment to new generations of classical musicians. In 2019 he co-founded the LEAD! Foundation to mentor and train young conductors, orchestral leaders, and, since 2023, composers. The foundation is based in Finland, offering workshops, masterclasses and side-by-side performances to young musicians as part of the Fiskars Summer Festival. 

The scheme grows in ambition this March with the first LEAD! Labs in Munich (6 to 9 March), alongside Saraste’s performances of Sibelius, Shostakovich and Kaipainen with Munich Philharmonic (7 & 8 March). Saraste and colleagues Sophie Heinrich, David Skudlik and Sarah Osa will run two Labs – for conductors and violinists – offering both practical and artistic mentorship.  

Rachel van Walsum, Executive Chair of Maestro Arts, and Tuck-May Loke, Director of Interdisciplinary and Touring, will work with Saraste and LEAD! foundation to develop this innovative concept alongside Saraste’s work with the world’s leading orchestras.

Saraste’s role as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, which he assumed in 2023, has just been extended until 2029. Together with the orchestra, this year he concludes Saraste & Sibelius – their project to record the complete Sibelius symphonies as high-quality multi-camera productions for live broadcast on STAGE+ – marking the 160th anniversary of the composer’s birth.