Ondine im Portrait

Label-Profil

The roots of Ondine date back to 1985 when founder Reijo Kiilunen released the very first Ondine album under the auspices of the renowned Finnish Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival. The label's initial mission was to produce one live album at the Festival each season. The fourth album, however, featured Einojuhani Rautavaara's opera Thomas (ODE 704-2), raising major international attention and opening the ground for overseas distribution. Kiilunen, who was running the Festival's concert agency and had begun the recording activity part-time, soon decided to devote himself fully to the development of this new business, producing and editing the first 50 releases himself. Since 2009 the company has been a part of the Naxos Group.

Today Ondine's extensive catalogue includes nearly 600 recordings of artists and ensembles such as conductor and pianist Christoph Eschenbach, conductors Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vasily Petrenko, Mikhail Pletnev, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Hannu Lintu, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Sakari Oramo, Leif Segerstam and John Storgårds, orchestras such as The Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, London Sinfonietta, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Russian National Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic and Tampere Philharmonic, sopranos Soile Isokoski and Karita Mattila, baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Gerald Finley, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, violist David Aaron Carpenter, cellist Truls Mørk and pianist Olli Mustonen.

The label has also had a long and fruitful association with Finnish composers Einojuhani Rautavaara, Magnus Lindberg and Kaija Saariaho, having recorded the premieres of many of their works and garnering many awards along the way.

(Selbstdarstellung)