With her elegant, expressive body language, natural stage presence and infectious musicality, Eva Ollikainen is one of the leading conductors of our time. She has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra since 2020. Previously, she was Chief Conductor of the Nordic Chamber Orchestra.

Recent and future highlights include appearances with the Wiener Symphoniker, DSO Berlin, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestre National de Belgique, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra as well as with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic and Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.
 

Elsewhere in the opera house, Ollikainen has conducted at the Semperoper Dresden, Royal Danish Opera, Gothenburg Opera, Kungliga Operan Stockholm and the Finnish National Opera.
 

Curious about contemporary music, Eva Ollikainen is also well known for championing the music of Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir, with whom Ollikainen has a close artistic partnership. In 2023, Ollikainen released Anna Thorvaldsdottir ARCHORA / AIŌN on Sono Luminus with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. This release follows the world premiere of ARCHORA, which was given by Ollikainen at her BBC Proms debut in 2022 with the BBC Philharmonic; the premiere was selected as one of The Guardian’s Classical Highlights of 2022.
 

A former student of Leif Segerstam and Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy, Eva Ollikainen won the Jorma Panula Conducting Competition at the age of 21. Today, the support of young musicians is close to her own heart. She teaches regularly at the Sibelius Academy and frequently leads master classes at institutions such as the Peabody Institute and the Royal Danish Academy of Music. She founded the Iceland Symphony‘s Conducting Academy in 2021.