Jorma Juhani Panula (born 10 August 1930) is a Finnish conductor, composer, and teacher of conducting. He has mentored many Finnish conductors, such as

Esa-Pekka Salonen Esa-Pekka Salonen (; born 30 June 1958) is a Finnish conducting, conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Sw ...

, Mikko Franck, Sakari Oramo, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Osmo Vänskä, Klaus Mäkelä and Tarmo Peltokoski.

Career

Panula was born in Kauhajoki, Finland, the son of violinist Elis Matias Panula and his wife Elsa (Huhtinen) Panula. He studied church music and conducting at the

Sibelius Academy The Sibelius Academy (, ) is part of the University of the Arts Helsinki and a university-level music school which operates in Helsinki and Kuopio, Finland. It also has an adult education centre in Järvenpää and a training centre in Seinäjoki ...

. His teachers included

Leo Funtek Leo Funtek (August 21, 1885 – January 13, 1965) was a Slovenian violinist, conductor and arranger. He is best known for work as a music professor and for his 1922 arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's piano suite '' Pictures at an Exhibition''. ...

, Dean Dixon, Albert Wolff and Franco Ferrara. Apart from conducting, he has composed a wide variety of music. His operas '' Jaakko Ilkka'' and the ''River Opera'' established a new genre called "performance opera", which fused music, visual art and the art of daily life. Panula's other compositions include

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...

s, church music, a violin concerto, jazz capriccio and numerous pieces of vocal music. Panula was the artistic director and chief conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra from 1963 to 1965, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from 1965 to 1972 and the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra from 1973 to 1976. He has also conducted his own opera '' Jaakko Ilkka'' at the

Finnish National Opera The Finnish National Opera and Ballet (; ) is a Finnish opera company and ballet company based in Helsinki. It is headquartered in the Opera House on the coast of the Töölönlahti bay in Töölö, which opened in 1993, and is state-owned throu ...

. Panula has served as Professor of Conducting at the

Helsinki Helsinki () is the Capital city, capital and most populous List of cities and towns in Finland, city in Finland. It is on the shore of the Gulf of Finland and is the seat of southern Finland's Uusimaa region. About people live in the municipali ...

from 1973 to 1994 and at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and the Royal Danish Academy of Music in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

. As a pedagogue, Panula has been a teacher and mentor to many Finnish and other conductors, including

, Mikko Franck, Sakari Oramo, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Matthias Manasi, Osmo Vänskä, Dalia Stasevska, Ricardo Chiavetta, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Klaus Mäkelä and Tarmo Peltokoski. Panula has taught conducting courses all over the world, including in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Moscow, New York, Tanglewood, Aspen, Ottawa and Sydney. He was listed as one of the "60 most powerful people in music" featured in the November 2000 issue of ''

BBC Music Magazine ''BBC Music Magazine'' is a British monthly magazine that focuses primarily on classical music. The first issue appeared in September 1992. BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC, was the original owner and publisher together with ...

''. Panula was awarded the

Rolf Schock Prize The Rolf Schock Prizes were established and endowed by bequest of philosopher and artist Rolf Schock (1933–1986). The prizes were first awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1993 and, since 2005, are awarded every three years. It is sometimes conside ...

in 1997. He conducted the Helsinki City Symphony Orchestra in the première in December 1971 of the first symphony by Aulis Sallinen. In March 2014, Panula caused controversy in a Finnish television interview with remarks that denigrated the ability of women to conduct particular composers, and that women were suited to conducting music that was "feminine enough", such as

Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

, but that they were unsuited for conducting Bruckner. He stated that "women onductors�� Of course they are trying! Some of them are making faces, sweating and fussing, but it is not getting any better – only worse!... It’s not a problem – if they choose the right pieces. If they take more feminine music... This is a purely biological question." Other conductors, such as his former student Salonen, responded critically to Panula's remarks.

Career

References

Further reading