This Autumn Klaus Mäkelä began his first season as Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris and his second season as Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic. In Paris he started his tenure one year early, having had the chance to spend more time with the orchestra as a result of the pandemic. ​“Incredible, the path taken since his first concert in July 2020!” wrote Le Figaro. ​“His Beethoven’s 7^th was full of promise, but still timid, as if in an observation phase, then his closed-door concerts of last season revealed a very mature conductor. This time, everything seems to have opened up. The conductor-orchestra couple has taken flight, in the magnificent creation of Unsuk Chin’s very virtuoso Spira, and in Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, which takes the time to unfold freely towards the climax. The suppleness of the conducting, the warm opulence of the sound, the continuity of the phrasing, all blossom in the sound space of the Philharmonie.”

His first season in Oslo also allowed Klaus Mäkelä to spend more time with the musicians than originally planned, but it was only with the second season that the doors of the Konserthus were finally opened. After a year of empty seats ​“the joy of reunion was great”. Klassekampen asked ​“I wonder if the excitement is due to poor memory, that I am not used to hearing an orchestra ring in a large hall. But no, I’m convinced that the generous sound is something that happens between chief conductor Klaus Mäkelä and his orchestra. It is as if the strings can play with a full arc even when the dynamics are at their lowest, and thus the sound becomes rounded. The colour palette for the withdrawn shades is wide, so that the musicians can play dramatically, but still make room to let the soloists appear clearly above the orchestra.”