Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg is The Marie-Josée Kravis Composer-in-Residence at the New York Philharmonic, a two-year appointment that begins in the 2009–10 season. As part of his appointment — which is one of Alan Gilbert’s major new initiatives as Music Director — Mr. Lindberg will write music for the Philharmonic and serve in a curatorial role for the institution. He will also be an integral part of CONTACT, the New York Philharmonic's new-music series, including curating and conducting programs.

The 2009–10 season will feature two World Premiere–New York Philharmonic Commissions by Mr. Lindberg, including EXPO, which opened the Orchestra's 168th season and is being repeated in subscription concerts and on the Asian Horizons tour in October 2009; the U.S. premiere of his Clarinet Concerto, written for and performed by Finnish clarinetist Kari Kriikku; and a performance of his 1995 work, Arena. His Feria will be the centerpiece of the Philharmonic's Young People's Concert in March 2010.

Magnus Lindberg was born in Helsinki in 1958. Following piano studies, he entered the Sibelius Academy, where his composition teachers included Einojuhani Rautavaara and Paavo Heininen. The latter encouraged his pupils to look beyond the prevailing Finnish conservative and nationalist aesthetics, and to explore the works of the European avant-garde. This led, around 1980, to the founding of the informal group known as the Ears Open Society, which included Mr. Lindberg and his contemporaries Eero Hämeeniemi, Jouni Kaipainen, Kaija Saariaho, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and sought to encourage a greater awareness of mainstream modernism. In 1981 Mr. Lindberg made a decisive move, traveling to Paris for studies with Vinko Globokar and Gérard Grisey and attending Franco Donatoni's classes in Siena, Italy. During the same period, he also was in contact with Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann, and Karl Höller.

Mr. Lindberg's compositional breakthrough came with two large-scale works, Action-Situation-Signification (1982) and Kraft (1983–85), which were inextricably linked with his founding, with Mr. Salonen, of the experimental Toimii Ensemble. This group — in which Mr. Lindberg plays piano and percussion — has provided the composer with a laboratory for his sonic development. His compositions of the early 1980s combined experimentalism, complexity, and primitivism, working with extremes of musical material. Toward the end of that decade, his compositional style transformed toward a new modernist classicism, in which many of the communicative ingredients of a vibrant musical language (harmony, rhythm, counterpoint, and melody) were reinterpreted afresh for the post-serial era. Key scores in this stylistic evolution were the orchestral/ensemble triptych Kinetics (1988), Marea (1989–90), and Joy (1989–90), reaching fulfillment in Aura (1993–94) and Arena (1994–95).

Over the past decade Magnus Lindberg’s output has positioned him at the forefront of orchestral composition, including the concert-opener Feria (1997, which the New York Philharmonic performed in 1997, under the direction of Jukka-Pekka Saraste); large-scale statements such as Fresco (1997), Cantigas (1999), Concerto for Orchestra (2002–03), and Sculpture (2005); and concertos for cello (1999), clarinet (2002), and violin (2006). Recent works include Seht die Sonne (2007), commissioned by the Berlin Philharmonic, under Sir Simon Rattle, and the San Francisco Symphony.

“I was there when the Philharmonic performed my work Feria, in 1997,” says Mr. Lindberg. “Hearing an American orchestra like the New York Philharmonic playing this piece was an amazing, tremendous thing for me. It makes me think of the possibilities we can work with in the upcoming year.”

Mr. Lindberg’s music has been recorded on the Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, Ondine, and Finlandia labels and is published by Boosey & Hawkes. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the UNESCO International Rostrums (1982 and 1986), the Nordic Council Music Prize (1988), the Koussevitsky Prize (1988), the Prix Italia (1986), the Royal Philharmonic Society (1993), the First European Composer Prize of the “young.euro.classic – Musik Sommer Berlin 2000” (which he shared), and the Wihuri Sibelius Prize (2003).