Kristiina Poska, chief conductor

As from the concert season 2019-20, Kristiina Poska is the chief conductor of the Flanders Symphony Orchestra. Internationally renowned, Poska made her successful debut with the Flanders Symphony Orchestra in the 2018-19 season, conducting a programme with work by Stulens, Beethoven, and Schubert. She follows in the footsteps of, among others, Seikyo Kim and Jan Latham-Koenig

Meet Kristiina Poska

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Biography

Conductor Kristiina Poska (Türi) started her musical career in Tallinn, where she studied choir conducting. She later went to Berlin and studied orchestral conducting with professor Christian Ehwald at the Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musik.

Kristiina Poska made her great breakthrough in 2010 with an impressive La Traviata by Verdi at the Komische Oper Berlin. From 2012 to 2016, she was the first conductor (Kapellmeister) of this renowned opera company. In addition to her successful opera career, Kristiina Poska is a much sought-after concert conductor in many countries. Among others, she conducted the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Camerata Salzburg, the radio orchestras of inter alia Cologne, Leipzig, Saarbrücken, Frankfurt am Main and Vienna, the Münchner Philharmoniker, the Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, the National Orchestra of Estonia, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, the Berner Symphonieorchester, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National of Lyon and the orchestras of the English National Opera, the Semperoper Dresden and the Staatsoper Stuttgart.

In 2013, Poska won the coveted conductor award of the Dirigentenforum of the Deutsche Musikrat. ‘Only few can master a musical palette that is as wide as Kristiina Poska’s,’ the German press wrote. She also made the finals of the Donatella Flick Competition, as well as the Malko Competition in 2012, where she captured both the third prize and the audience award.

View her extensive biography >>>

Successful debut at Flanders Symphony Orchestra

During the 2018-19 season Kristiina Poska marked her debut with the Flanders Symphony Orchestra. In November 2018, she conducted the orchestra together with soloists Lorenzo Gatto, Camille Thomas and Julien Libeer in a programme that featured work by Stulens, Beethoven, and Schubert. Both the orchestra and the audience were wildly enthusiastic about the cooperation.

From the start I could immediately identify myself with the fresh, inspiring and committed way in which the Flanders Symphony Orchestra makes music and with the unique atmosphere of the historical Bijloke concert hall in Ghent, which could not better represent the mentality and way of making music I believe in - based on awareness of the past, looking to the future with flexibility and curiosity, and cherishing the mystery of a moment.– Kristiina Poska, chief conductor of the Flanders Symphony Orchestra since season 2019-20

The Flanders Symphony Orchestra has the support of the Flemish government and the City of Ghent, and has been the orchestra in residence in De Bijloke Music Centre in Ghent since 2017. Ghent has been the twin city of Tallinn since 1982.