What the top Finnish conductors earn
NewsFinnish media today published the publicly available 2022 tax returns of the country’s leading musicians.
Here are the top 10 conductors:
1) Santtu-Matias Rouvali: 490,000 €
2) Sakari Oramo: 325,000 €
3) Leif Segerstam: 324,000 €
4) Hannu Lintu: 268,000 €
5) Dalia Stasevska: 252,000 €
6) John Storgårds: 240,000 €
7) Klaus Mäkelä: 236,000 €
8) Jorma Panula: 206,000 €
9) Olli Mustonen: 204,000 €
10) Ville Matvejeff: 163,000 €
Missing from the list are: Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Susanna Mälkki, Osmo Vänskä, Dima Slobodeniouk, Okko Kamu and Mikko Franck. It must be assumed that they file tax returns in other countries.
pictured: Rouvali (c)Laura Luostarinen
I very much doubt that those figures include the totality of their compensation. There’s no way that Mäkelä makes only 236,000 €…
Jerry: or then he gets top jobs cos his…cheap (?)
– He’s still 27, and after all, the classical music market is not Hollywood, or Instagram – yet…
Correct. The figures may just reflect what they earn on Finland. Mustonen’s earning aren’t enormous but perhaps higher than I expected.
Considering he holds 2 directorships, regularly guest conducts top orchestras across the planet, has a big presence at Verbier…
Otherwise, are the French really paying him only 100K or he only gets 10K for his guest conducting gigs? He’d seriously need a new agent!
Yep. Taxable income is very different to total income, and be mindful that this is not the net income (i.e after tax). Good for them that they are earning a great living.
High time that UK conductors’ salaries were subject to such transparency, given the cuts being made to performing arts here.
And beyond high time that arts administrators’ salaries were made public, given many are building their careers on those self same cuts.
Old Holborn – they largely are, in the UK at least. Most arts administrators (those who’s salaries you might be interested in) only work for one organisation, and the accounts for that organisation will show you how many pelple earn in given salary bands above £60k (specified every £10k above).
It’s fairly reliable to assue that the CEO / GM is the top earner followed by the CFO, and after that proably the Director / VP of Development / Fundraising.
You can thus see – to the nearest 10k – the compensation awared to the leaders of large arts organisations.
This is just Finnish taxable income. Not foreign income.
If so: How about Susanna Mälkki being the chief conductor of Helsinki PO in 2022 but paying 0 € in taxes in Finland ?
Evidently this could not cover all of the income of Mäkelä but it is remarkably low. Perhaps HP spends too much time negotiating Santtu and less so Klaus.
And yet, rank-and-file musicians probably make a fraction of these numbers. The disparity between conductors and the rest is still way too great across our field, especially considering that many of these folks only put in a few weeks a year with an orchestra and also collect many fancy perks.
How is Jorma earning that much? He doesn’t conduct, does he?
John: Jorma teaches non-stop (since 1973)
Monatlich, Jährlich?
We welcome transparency and would welcome it in other countries and institutions too.
However, it’s not as simple as it looks. These are figures of taxable income after deductions. Deductions can be several tens of % of the gross income. Agency commissions (20% of the gross fee) are normally not accepted as deductable costs in Finland, so you might add another 20% on top.
These figures include foreign income too, if it was paid as salary directly to the person. All income is taxable in Finland regardless of the source.
Some conductors have also companies (for holding / investment purposes), which means that part of the income may be invoiced to the company and not paid out as salary but invested into goods or assets, thus avoiding tax (it’s legal). These companies may exist also outside of Finland.
Rouvali for instance definitely earns more than 490k€ if you look from HarrisonParrott’s contracts point of view. Probably between 545k-680k€.
As per Mäkelä, he didn’t have any taxable income in Finland in 2021, which means he might have been a resident in another country and then returned to Finland in 2022. The surprisingly low taxable income could be explained by that he moved his residency back to Finland during the year but not the full year. It would all make sense if this was his salary for 4-6 months, meaning 2022 he could have totalled the same amount as Rouvali or more.
Lintu and Oramo have their holding companies, so most likely their income is higher than here. Segerstam and Panula are technically retired but probably have good pensions.
Slobodeniouk had 337.000€ taxable income in 2022. Media had missed finding his info, but he is no 2 on this list.
Remarkable list of talent, considering a total population of 5.5 million for Finland.
Have to wonder how 6 figure earnings reflect half-empty concert halls. (In London at least.)
The audience numbers are a result of London concert hall mismanagement and poor marketing, and not directly linked to the quality of the performances.
Sponsorship and guest conductor gigs in other countries, as well as income from recordings. You can also offer much lower pay but a) then they won’t accept the post, b) the musicians won’t agree to appointing a less accomplished candidate. Concert hall performances are not an orchestra’s only source of revenue- the country house opera seasons are more lucrative and often sold out eg Glyndebourne, Garsington etc, and film score recording contracts, which pay well if it’s a blockbuster or well financed film.
Conductors by and large are grossly over-paid. These modern baton wielders have only a fraction of the talent of the likes of Bernstein, Karajan, Walter, Mitropoulos, Munch, Barbirolli, Boult, Paray, not to mention Muti, Mehta, or Maazel.
This prompts me to wonder what the Top Ten US List looks like; perhaps SD provides that on a different page.