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Minnesota Star Tribune

Farewell to Osmo Vänskä

The Minnesota Orchestra's music director will lead his final concerts June 10-12 after two decades on the podium.

By Star Tribune staff

June 4, 2022 at 9:20PM
Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä took over the Minnesota Orchestra in the fall of 2003.
Osmo Vänskä thanked stage manager Tim Eickholt for making him a baton moments before he walked onstage to open his first season with the Minnesota Orchestra on Sept. 11, 2003.
Osmo Vänskä gestured to the first violins as the orchestra performed Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 during his first concert as music director.
The orchestra created Osmo bobbleheads in 2004.
Vänskä led a toast after the Minnesota Orchestra performed at the Barbican Centre in London on Feb. 22, 2004. From left, violist Eiji Ikeda, principal cellist Tony Ross and concertmaster Jorja Fleezanis (in red).
Vänskä collected his thoughts while waiting for the stage to be reset after Joshua Bell's performance with the Minnesota Orchestra at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, England on Feb. 24, 2004.
Vänskä got a big wet kiss from his dog, Lilja, backstage at Sibelius Hall in Lahti, Finland. His daughter, Tytti Vänskä, brought the dog as the Minnesota Orchestra prepared for a 2004 concert in his homeland.
Vänskä checked out the fit of a 1970s-inspired suit by Twin Cities designer Mark Caligiuri that he planned to wear for a 2006 pops concert of ABBA tunes.
Vänskä played his clarinet in a makeshift dressing room at the Jackson County Central Performing Arts Center in Jackson, Minn. The orchestra's 2008 stop in Jackson was one of four in a tour of southwest Minnesota towns.
Vänskä conducted the fourth movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 as the Minnesota Orchestra played the BBC Proms on Aug. 28, 2010, at Royal Albert Hall in London.
Vänskä walked off the stage after the Minnesota Orchestra's 2010 performance at the BBC Proms.
Osmo Vänskä, left, and violinist Gil Shaham basked in applause at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam after Shaham and the Minnesota Orchestra played an encore of traditional Turkish tunes. Earlier in the Aug. 30, 2010 concert, Shaham soloed on Mozart's "Turkish" Concerto.
Vänskä led the orchestra on June 15, 2011, in the last concert at Orchestra Hall before it was closed for renovations.
Vänskä returned to Orchestra Hall to a standing ovation March 27, 2014, after a contract settlement ended the 16-month lockout of musicians.
Vänskä and concertmaster Erin Keefe — his newlywed wife — took a selfie upon arrival at Jose Marti International Airport in Havana, Cuba on May 13, 2015.
Cuban pianist Frank Fernandez, left, took a bow during the Minnesota Orchestra's first of two concerts at the Teatro Nacional in Havana, Cuba on May 15, 2015.
The Minneapolis skyline provided a backdrop as Vänskä led the Minnesota Orchestra in his own arrangement of a traditional Finnish polka, "Säkkijärven," to close out a free concert at The Commons on Sept. 19, 2017.
Vänskä reacted playfully at the 2018 Symphony Ball after Minneapolis singer-songwriter Jeremy Messersmith took the stage in a gold Darth Vader helmet. His first song: "Tattoine," inspired by the movie "Star Wars."
Vänskä jumped on the bass drum for a South African song during the side-by-side rehearsal with the South African Youth Orchestra at the University of Pretoria on Aug. 15, 2018.
South African soprano Goitsemang Lehobye was featured in a sold-out concert at the University of Pretoria during the orchestra's 2018 tour of South Africa.
Vänskä, silhouetted in stained glass, during a rehearsal at Soweto's Regina Mundi Church on Aug. 17, 2018.
A masked Vänskä led the Minnesota Orchestra as they welcomed live audiences back to Orchestra Hall on June 11, 2021, for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020.
As composer Molly Joyce, left, discussed her piece "Over and Under" with associate principal trumpet Douglas Carlson, Vänskä went over the score with acting principal second violin Jonathan Magness during a Composer Institute rehearsal May 3, 2022.
Osmo Vänskä led the orchestra in a rehearsal May 3, 2022 at Orchestra Hall for the Composer Institute program.
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Finnish conductor Osmo Vänskä took over the Minnesota Orchestra in the fall of 2003. (Stormi Greener, Star Tribune/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
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