Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra

Born in Helsinki in 1946, Okko Kamu grew up with a father who served as a double bassist in the Helsinki Philharmonic. At age two he started violin instruction under Väinö Arjava, a close associate of his father and the orchestra’s concertmaster. Four years afterward he entered the Sibelius Academy to study violin with Onni Suhonen. By ten he had joined the Helsinki Youth Orchestra, and at eighteen he founded the Suhonen Quartet. Between 1966 and 1968 he held the post of concertmaster with the Finnish National Opera Orchestra while also taking up the baton for the first time. In 1969 he was named principal guest conductor of the Royal Swedish Opera and captured first prize in the Karajan competition in Berlin, which quickly brought him leadership roles with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1971 to 1977 and the Oslo Philharmonic from 1975 to 1979. During those years he began his recording career with the widely admired Sibelius: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3. A recognized specialist in the works of Aulis Sallinen, Kamu directed the premieres of The Red Line, The King Goes Forth to France, and the composer’s second and third symphonies. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s he appeared regularly with the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Netherlands Royal Symphony Orchestra, and numerous other leading ensembles, devoting many of his discs to Scandinavian repertoire by Berwald, Tor Aulin, and Adolf Lindblad. From 2011 to 2016 he served as chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra; both of his Berwald symphony sets earned the Diapason D’Or. After leaving Lahti he led the Royal Danish Orchestra and Opera Chorus in the live recording Sibelius: The Tempest, issued in 2022. He continues to record, guest-conduct widely, and holds membership in the Swedish Royal Music Academy.