From the far north to the wider world
Portrait of the conductor Dalia Stasevska

The Finnish conductor Dalia Stasevska makes her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the end of February as part of this year’s Biennale. Her programme of works by Sibelius, Grieg, Saariaho and Debussy is designed as an encounter between the Nordic and French worlds of music. The line that connects them is nature, with its kaleidoscopic interplay of sky, sea and light.

Dalia Stasevska’s career seems to show stringent planning, leavened by a bold mix of cultures and languages. The daughter of a Ukrainian father and a Finnish mother, both of whom worked in the visual arts, she was born in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in 1984. She was still a child when she and her family moved to Estonia's Tallinn and, shortly afterwards, to Finland. She initially studied the violin and composition in Tampere and subsequently the violin and viola in Helsinki before she turned to conducting, which she studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm and at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. Among her mentors were the legendary conductors and teachers Jorma Panula and Leif Segerstam. She completed her studies with distinction in 2012.

Stasevska joined the international concert circuit by jumping in at the deep end, which proved a successful move. From 2014, she spent two years as assistant to Paavo Järvi at the Orchestre de Paris. In 2018, she was invited to conduct the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra at that year’s Nobel Prize awards ceremony. During this time, she enjoyed a busy international schedule as a guest conductor. Since 2019 she has been principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and since 2021, chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and artistic director of the International Sibelius Festival. She has appeared on multiple occasions at the BBC Proms. Her growing reputation is evident in her recent engagements, notably with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and such major American orchestras as the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, the Chicago Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Fondness for contemporary music

Dalia Stasevska is equally at home on the concert stage and in opera houses, a point underlined by her successful debut at the 2023 Glyndebourne Festival. Her fondness for contemporary music is evident in her recent album Dalia’s Mixtape with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which features ten handpicked works by ten different contemporary composers who include Anna Meredith, Caroline Shaw, Judith Weir and Jóhann Jóhannsson. She uses Instagram to explain her fascination with these sound worlds, motivating younger listeners to discover new music, to which she provides an undogmatic introduction.

Dalia Stasevska’s video channel provides insights into her headstand routine during the coronavirus lockdown, her life as a jet-setting conductor with a small child, and her support for Ukraine. Since 2022, Stasevska has used online platforms to raise funds for her embattled country of origin, transporting aid there herself on several occasions.