© Tuomo Manninen

Hannu Lintu is one of Finland's most sought-after conductors and is rapidly creating a major international career. He has been Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra 2009-2013, and also Principal Guest Conductor of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin. Before assuming the new role of Chief Conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 2013 to 2021, he was the orchestra's Chief Guest Conductor in 2012. Hannu Lintu was previously Chief Conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. He is a regular guest conductor with the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra in Finland and was Artistic Director of the orchestra's Summer Sounds festival in 2005. In November 2022, the Gulbenkian Orchestra announced the appointment of Lintu as its next chief conductor.

Hannu Lintu studied the cello, the piano, and subsequently conducting with Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy. He participated in master classes with Myung-Whun Chung at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and won first prize in the Nordic Conducting Competition in Bergen in 1994. He has appeared with the Cincinnati Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, St Louis Symphony, Toronto Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony and Dallas Symphony orchestras, the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Orquesta Sinfonica de RTVE, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic and Royal Flemish Philharmonic orchestras. He has also conducted a cycle of the complete Beethoven Symphonies with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. Hannu Lintu has conducted several award-winning recordings for Ondine, including Grammy-nominated albums.