Soloists with whom he enjoys collaborating include Gautier and Renaud Capuçon, Brett Dean, Isabelle Faust, Nicolas Altstaedt, Alban Gerhardt, Martin Grubinger, Martin Helmchen, Stephen Hough, Lucas & Arthur Jussen, Karita Mattila, Alexander Melnikov, Daniel Lozakovich, Baiba Skride, Simon Trpčeski, and Antoine Tamestit. 

For the 2025/26 season, Olari Elts is set to present another series of sophisticated programmes with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, both in Tallinn and in Europe on tour, including stops in Ljubljana and Bregenz. His guest engagements feature notable returns to Australia and New Zealand, leading both the Tasmania Symphony and Auckland Philharmonia Orchestras. He will also make highly anticipated returns to the Polish National Radio Orchestra and Latvian National Symphony Orchestra. Furthermore, Elts will embark on a tour across Northern Germany with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, reunite in the UK with the Ulster Orchestra and mark his debut with the Korean National Symphony Orchestra at Seoul Arts Center. 

As a champion of contemporary Baltic composers, Olari Elts has released recordings of Heino Eller’s Symphonic Poems, as well as his violin concerto with Baiba Skride and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra. Also widely celebrated by critics are his Ondine recordings of Erkki-Sven Tüür works with Tapiola Sinfonietta, including the viola concerto with Lawrence Power, Tüür’s Symphony No. 5, and the accordion concerto ‘Prophecy’ with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. His 2016 recording of Brahms’ arrangements (Glanert, Berio) with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra also received high praise. Olari Elts’ discography includes the Borgström and Shostakovich violin concertos with Eldbjørg Hemsing and the Wiener Symphoniker as well as recent releases with music by Kalevi Aho recorded with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and the Kymi Sinfonietta, under the BIS label and an album with music by award-winning Norwegian composer Øyvind Torvund in collaboration with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. His recording of Saariaho's 'True Fire' for Radio France won the 2024 Gramophone Contemporary Award, further highlighting his artistic excellence in contemporary music. 

Olari Elts has also made his mark in opera, having conducted titles such as ‘Eugene Onegin’, Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘Idomeneo’, and Berlioz’s ‘La Damnation de Faust’. Crossing genres, Olari Elts toured to the Konzerthaus Berlin with a theatre-concert production which combined Mendelssohn and Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with the Tallinn-based theatre company NO99. For Bernstein’s 100 th anniversary, Olari Elts conducted the film ‘On the Waterfront’ with the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg. Last season, he revived the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra’s acclaimed semi-staged production of ‘Macbeth’, in collaboration with the Estonian Drama Theatre. 

Olari Elts was Principal Guest Conductor of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra from 2007-2020 and held the same position at Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from 2011-2014. He was Artistic Advisor of the Orchestre National de Bretagne from 2006-2011, Principal Guest Conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra from 2007-2010, and Chief Conductor of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra from 2001-2006.

SEASON 2025/26