The Flying Finn

While some far more established conductors are still trying to pick up the threads of their Covid-shredded careers, Dalia Stasevska will be carrying on this summer just where she left off last year. Having conducted the Last Night of the Proms back in September – probably the most challenging assignment entrusted to any conductor in 2020, for many reasons – the 36-year-old Ukrainian-born Finn will conduct the First Night of this year’s BBC Proms, on 30 July.

IF THAT ISN’T ENOUGH PRESSURE, she also conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra (of which she is principal guest conductor) in the opening concert of the Edinburgh International Festival just over a week later. And to round off her relaxing summer, she will then return to Finland to conduct her first concert as the newly appointed chief conductor of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra.

And there’s more. Stasevska has a guest-conducting schedule that seems to embrace several continents simultaneously. She describes it as ‘like being on a speed-dating app: you see the picture and then you meet!’. This year alone she makes her debut with orchestras in Montreal, Toronto, Paris, Brussels, Bergen and Hong Kong, as well as conducting Renée Fleming’s production of Mozart’s in Washington DC. ‘I