Another classmate on the composition side was the composer Magnus Lindberg and together they formed the new-music appreciation group Korvat auki ("Ears open" in the Finnish language) and the experimental ensemble Toimii (lit.

Salonen later took the orchestra on many other tours of the United States, Europe, and Asia, and residencies at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland, The Proms in London, in Cologne for a festival of Salonen's own works, and in 1996 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris for a Stravinsky festival conducted by Salonen and Pierre Boulez; it was during this Paris residency that key Philharmonic board members heard the orchestra perform in improved acoustics and were re-invigorated to lead fundraising efforts to complete construction of Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Alex Ross of The New Yorker said this:The Salonen era in L.A. may mark a turning point in the recent history of classical music in America.

[7][8][9][10] Before Salonen's last concert as Music Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic on 19 April 2009, the orchestra announced his appointment as its first Conductor Laureate.

[12][13] During Salonen's tenure as music director, the orchestra gave 120 pieces their world or American debuts and commissioned over 54 new works.

[14][15] In November 2006, the Philharmonia Orchestra announced the appointment of Salonen as Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor at the beginning of the 2008–2009 season.

[20] Salonen made his Metropolitan Opera conducting debut in November 2009 with the Patrice Chéreau production of Leoš Janáček's From the House of the Dead.

The award includes a $100,000 cash prize, a residency of four nonconsecutive weeks at the school over the next two years, and a performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

[25] He serves as an advisor to The Sync Project, a global collaboration seeking to understand and harness music's effect on brain health.

[28][29] In March 2024, Salonen announced that he would be leaving the San Francisco Symphony when his contract expires in 2025, stating that "I do not share the same goals for the future of the institution as the Board of Governors does.

The digital residency allows members of the public to conduct, play and step inside the Philharmonia Orchestra with Salonen through audio and video projections of musicians performing The Rite of Spring.

[34] They followed-up with another installation, Universe of Sound, which was based on Gustav Holst's The Planets, debuted at London's Science Museum,[35] and won the 2012 Royal Philharmonic Society Award for Audiences and Engagement.

[45] Salonen also led a concert with violinist Leila Josefowicz and the Philharmonia Orchestra in an Apple store in Berlin and spoke about mixing music and technology.

[48] Salonen was previously married to Jane Price, a former musician with the Philharmonia Orchestra, with whom he had three children: daughters Ella Aneira and Anja Sofia, and son Oliver.

[50][51] When Igor Stravinsky's former Beverly Hills residence, at 1260 North Wetherly Drive, was put up for sale, Salonen strongly considered buying it.

[54] In May 2010, he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Southern California, and later the same day spoke at the graduation ceremony for the USC Thornton School of Music.

[56] In December 2020, he was appointed an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE), for services to music and UK-Finland relations.

[60] Salonen's compositions include his Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra (auf den ersten Blick und ohne zu wissen) (1980, with a title taken from Franz Kafka's The Trial), Floof for soprano and ensemble (1982, on texts by Stanisław Lem) and the orchestral L.A. Variations (1996).

Although a work of great intricacy and virtuosity that doesn't ignore Salonen's Modernist training, "LA Variations" builds on rhythmic innovations closer to Adams.

[4]In order to devote more time to composition, Salonen took a year's sabbatical from conducting in 2000, during which time he wrote a work for solo horn (Concert Étude, the competition piece for Lieksa Brass Week), Dichotomie for pianist Gloria Cheng, Mania for the cellist Anssi Karttunen and sinfonietta, and Gambit, an orchestral piece that was a birthday present for fellow composer and friend Magnus Lindberg.

In 2001, Salonen composed Foreign Bodies, his largest work in terms of orchestration, which incorporated music from the opening movement of Dichotomie.

As is apparent with his interpretations of such avant-garde works as Jan Sandström's Motorbike Odyssey, Salonen voices a distaste for ideological and dogmatic approaches to composition and sees music creation as deeply physical.

4 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, once for Sony Classical, and later in a live recording at Walt Disney Concert Hall for Deutsche Grammophon.