Jorma Panula is a Finnish conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

, composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, and professor of conducting

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

.

Panula is a graduate of the Sibelius Academy

Sibelius Academy

The Sibelius Academy is 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. The Academy is the only music university in Finland. It is among the biggest European music universities...

, where he studied the organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

, church music

Church music

Church music may be defined as music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclestiacal liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. This article covers music in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. For sacred music outside this...

 and conducting

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

. His teachers have included Leo Funtek

Leo Funtek

Leo Funtek was a 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

Dean Dixon

Charles Dean Dixon was an American conductor.Dixon was born in New York City, where he later studied conducting with Albert Stoessel at the Juilliard School and Columbia University. When early pursuits of conducting engagements were stifled because of racial bias , he formed his own orchestra and...

, Albert Wolff and Franco Ferrara

Franco Ferrara

Franco Ferrara was an Italian conductor.After obtaining diplomas in piano, violin, organ and musical composition at the Conservatory of Bologna, Ferrara began his career as violin player in Bologna, in Rome and in Florence, with the Orchestra of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino...

.

After his studies at the Sibelius Academy, Panula worked as the artistic director

Artistic director

An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company, that handles the organization's artistic direction. He or she is generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the organization is generally a non-profit organization...

 and chief conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra (1963–1965), the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra

Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra

The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra is an orchestra based in Helsinki, Finland...

 (1965–1972), and the Århus Symphony Orchestra (1973–1976). He has also conducted his own opera Jaakko Ilkka

Jaakko Ilkka (opera)

Jaakko Ilkka is an opera by Finnish composer Jorma Panula; it deals with the eponymous peasant leader of the Cudgel War of 1596, and was composed between 1977 and 1978....

at the Finnish National Opera

Finnish National Opera

The Finnish National Opera in Helsinki is the leading opera company in Finland. Its home base is the Opera House on Töölönlahti bay in Töölö which opened in 1993, and is state-owned through Senate Properties...

.

Jorma Panula has served as Professor of Conducting at the Sibelius Academy

Sibelius Academy

The Sibelius Academy is 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. The Academy is the only music university in Finland. It is among the biggest European music universities...

 in Helsinki

Helsinki

Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

, the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

. He has had great influence on the world of conducting through his teaching. He has been called "the maestro of the maestros" and "hidden hand" behind the extraordinary succession of fine conductors that came out of Finland. His students include Esa-Pekka Salonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London and Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.-Early career:...

 ("There is no other teacher of conducting who is as remarkable as Panula"), Mikko Franck

Mikko Franck

Mikko Franck is a Finnish conductor. He began to play the violin at the age of 5. By age 7, he reportedly preferred orchestral scores to all other reading matter. His first favorite score was Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 which he used to conduct while listening to a recording on earphones...

, Sakari Oramo

Sakari Oramo

Sakari Markus Oramo OBE is a Finnish conductor.Oramo started his career as a violinist and concertmaster of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 1989, he enrolled in Jorma Panula's conducting class at the Sibelius Academy...

, Jukka-Pekka Saraste

Jukka-Pekka Saraste

Jukka-Pekka Saraste is a Finnish conductor and violinist.Saraste was trained as a violinist. He later studied conducting at the Sibelius Academy with Jorma Panula, in the same class as Esa-Pekka Salonen and Osmo Vänskä...

, and Osmo Vänskä

Osmo Vänskä

Osmo Antero Vänskä is a Finnish conductor, clarinetist and composer.He started his musical career as an orchestral clarinetist with the Turku Philharmonic . He then became the principal clarinet of the Helsinki Philharmonic from 1977 to 1982...

. John Storgårds

John Storgårds

John Gunnar Rafael Storgårds is a Finnish violinist and conductor.Storgårds studied violin with Esther Raitio and Jouko Ignatius at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, and continued his violin studies with Chaim Taub in Israel. He was a founding member of the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra...

, Susanna Mälkki

Susanna Mälkki

Susanna Mälkki is a Finnish conductor. Trained as a cellist as a pupil of Hannu Kiiski, she later studied conducting with Jorma Panula, as well as Eri Klas and Leif Segerstam, at the Sibelius Academy. She has also studied at London's Royal Academy of Music...

, Pietari Inkinen

Pietari Inkinen

Pietari Inkinen is a Finnish violinist and conductor. He began violin and piano studies at age 4. As a youth, he also performed in a rock band. He attended the Sibelius Academy and graduated with diplomas in violin and conducting...

, Atso Almila

Atso Almila

Atso Almila is a Finnish orchestral conductor, musical director, composer, trombonist and teacher.He has worked with most Finnish orchestras as a guest conductor or otherwise. Though he primarily operates in Finland he also works heavily in Sweden and Estonia...

, Sasha Mäkilä

Sasha Mäkilä

Sasha Aleksi Mäkilä is a Finnish conductor and currently Assistant Conductor of The Cleveland Orchestra.-Biography:Sasha Mäkilä, born in Kerava, Finland, first studied cello at the Helsinki Conservatory before starting his conducting studies with Leonid Korchmar at the Rimsky-Korsakov State...

, Ricardo Chiavetta, Hannu Lintu, Olari Elts

Olari Elts

Olari Elts is an Estonian Conductor. He was the principal conductor of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra from 2001 to 2006...

, Mikk Murdvee

Mikk Murdvee

Mikk Murdvee is an Estonian-Finnish conductor and violinist living in Helsinki, Finland.-Education:Mikk Murdvee was born in Tallinn...

 and Ari Rasilainen have also studied under Panula's guidance, among many others. Most students around the world rehearse conducting only with a pianist

Pianist

A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...

. At the Sibelius Academy, after seeing how the Soviet conservatories work, Panula founded the Conductor's Symphony Orchestra for his students, because "a conductor cannot rehearse without an orchestra!".

Panula has given conducting courses all over the world

World

World is a common name for the whole of human civilization, specifically human experience, history, or the human condition in general, worldwide, i.e. anywhere on Earth....

, including Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

, Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, Tanglewood

Tanglewood

Tanglewood is an estate and music venue in Lenox and Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It is the home of the annual summer Tanglewood Music Festival and the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, and has been the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer home since 1937. It was the venue of the Berkshire Festival.- History...

, Aspen

Aspen

Populus section Populus, of the Populus genus, includes the aspen trees and the white poplar Populus alba. The five typical aspens are all native to cold regions with cool summers, in the north of the Northern Hemisphere, extending south at high altitudes in the mountains. The White Poplar, by...

, Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

 and Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, though he has limited his podium appearances greatly during past years. Apart from conducting, Panula has composed a wide variety of music, including opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s, musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

s, church music

Church music

Church music may be defined as music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclestiacal liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn. This article covers music in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. For sacred music outside this...

, a violin concerto

Violin concerto

A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin and instrumental ensemble, customarily orchestra. Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up through the present day...

, jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, and numerous pieces of vocal music

Vocal music

Vocal music is a genre of music performed by one or more singers, with or without instrumental accompaniment, in which singing provides the main focus of the piece. Music which employs singing but does not feature it prominently is generally considered instrumental music Vocal music is a genre of...

.

Panula is the only Finn on BBC Music Magazine

BBC music magazine

BBC Music Magazine is a magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom by BBC Worldwide, the commercial subsidiary of the BBC. Reflecting the broadcast output of BBC Radio 3, the magazine is devoted primarily to classical music, though with sections on jazz and world music. Each edition comes...

's league table

League table

A league table, standings, ranking chart, or ladder is a chart or list which compares sports teams, institutions, nations or companies by ranking them in order of ability or achievement. A league table may list several related statistics, but they are generally sorted by the primary one that...

 of the 60 Most Powerful People in Music, featured in the November issue of 2000. "The teacher of a generation of some of the most successful conductors, such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Osmo Vänskä, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Tuomas Ollila, Sakari Oramo, and the young Mikko Franck", the magazine says in its reference to Panula. "As the chief conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the leader of his conducting class (at the Sibelius Academy), Panula has brought about a change in Finnish music and raised it to the highest levels in Europe", enthuses the writer.

Panula was awarded the Rolf Schock Prize in 1997.