It’s the day after Santtu-Matias Rouvali made his debut as the Philharmonia’s principal conductor and he is smiling, relaxed and chatty. Maybe the reviews explain his upbeat mood. The Guardian wrote: “Rouvali proved a fine Straussian, measured in his approach, and careful in his attention to detail and colour.” The Times went with: “Gleaming and full of promise … This was orchestral music at its biggest and boldest.” Did he read them? “My mother sends me Finnish ones sometimes,” he says, “but I’m not on Facebook – I don’t do any kind of social media. So generally no, I don’t see what’s been written. But I know in my head and heart how things went. And yesterday I had so much fun with the musicians on stage that I knew it couldn’t be bad!” The monumental Strauss programme, with its supersized orchestral forces, was a response to the strictures of the last 18 months. “After Covid, I wanted to see everybody in the orchestra, plus extra!” he says with a grin. “What could be more like a statement than Also Sprach Zarathustra as an opening piece, and then the Alpine Symphony? It is a mountain – like, we start now, here with the Philharmonia and we go up, but I hope we stay there and don’t go down!” At only 35, Rouvali is young to be in the role, and has had little opportunity to become a familiar figure to British audiences these last 20 months. Still, extravagant of hair and bold of gesture, he fits reassuringly into the mould of how conductors are expected to look. Likewise his musical background: both his parents were players in the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. Finland punches above its weight in terms of musical talent, much of it choosing to work in the UK – Sakari Oramo and Dalia Stasevska included. And, of course, Rouvali takes over from fellow Finn Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Philharmonia Orchestra. He sees similarities between the two nations that help make him feel at home here. “There’s a dry sense of humour, and I think the tendency both have to be a little arrogant sometimes, but also to keep something hidden. I always love coming here. People are friendly. I’m looking forward to getting to know London and beyond better.” And us, him. On and off stage, he’s easy to like. Quick to laugh, his accented English is not quite fluent, leading to charming occasional idiosyncrasies – “My English is stucking” he says as he tries to find the right word at one point. On stage, Rouvali communicates with immediacy and generosity. He has a hyperactive, almost balletic conducting technique. I’m reminded of a magician with his wand. It sometimes looks as if you are drawing the music out of the air, I tell him. “Yes. Yes. The music is there, you are controlling what to take by your movements.” He loves the Philharmonia’s ability to live in the “now moment”, vital for a conductor whose watchword is spontaneity. “I get that from my teacher, Leif Segerstam. I need an orchestra that I can take suddenly in a different direction. It’s like, you are throwing the ball, but somebody needs to throw it back to you. Your players, and, yes, also your audience.” Lately he’s been trying to describe his job to his eight-year-old son. “I say to him: ‘how do you feel the music?’” He recently played him Orff’s Carmina Burana, the first piece that he remembers being really truly thrilled by as a small boy watching the Lahti Orchestra’s rehearsals. Orff’s propulsive rhythms are hard to resist, and it was the percussion section that first captured his imagination. “I would always watch the timpani. It’s so visual.” Aged five or six he was allowed to have a go himself, perched on the knee of the timpanist. Youth orchestras, international competitions and solo gigs followed, and he went to study at the prestigious Sibelius Academy, but even prior to this had found himself interested in conducting: reading scores, following them during rehearsals from his place at the back of the orchestra. “I thought ‘I want to do music more. Not just my own part. I want to produce the sound somehow else. I felt like [conducting] was the same as bouncing the drum sticks. The same wrist, plus the arm. So I thought everything should match,” he jokes. He may have had the rhythm and the arm movements licked, but there’s a great deal more to master. Why does he think he so immediately impressed? “You need to have good hands “That’s the first thing! And good musical ideas, of course. But conducting is about character, you need to be a psychologist. It’s about leadership. You need to like being in front of people, to enjoy performing, but you need to know how to handle those people in front of you, how to cooperate.” Thirty years ago, few conductors would have concerned themselves with whether their players were happy, tired, bored, or weighed down by concerns outside the concert hall. But Rouvali knows the importance of time to relax and of balance, not least in his own life. With posts at two other orchestras, it’s hard to imagine how he achieves this. “I always say I have four orchestras: the fourth is my family, and that’s how my schedule is made,” he says. “My son needs me. And I don’t want to be in the spotlight all the time. It’s tiring. But if you have one week of sauna, of hunting and fishing you are refreshed.” Hunting? Fishing? While most of us relax slumped in front of Netflix with a takeaway, his down time is a whole other matter. “I live in the countryside, and have 14 hectares of forest. I shoot birds, deer, rabbits, geese, wild pigeons, hare.” He shows me pictures on his phone of him and a friend with a white-tailed deer, and his son grinning widely with his small arms full of carp. “I shoot only what we can eat, and if we have enough food then we don’t go hunting.” Every stage of the process he does himself, from skinning to filleting. “I never buy meat from shops. Now you understand why I don’t have time for social media – I prefer to be on the lake fishing for six hours!” On cue, his phone quacks (I fail to ask if this ringtone is a duck he recorded and then ate). London must feel like another planet. Perhaps it’s not surprising that Richmond Park is top of his list of where he’d like to go should he have a free day – but not to shoot the deer he promises. “And I’m going to visit the Tower. And I want to see more theatre, and musicals.” He caught The Lion King on a previous visit and loved it. He also loves rockabilly and jazz, and if he ever finds himself with a spare Sunday back home in Finland he is going to join the Finnish Police’s Big Band on drums, he says. What about collaborating with a rock band? Can he see the Philharmonia on stage at Wembley? With the Rolling Stones, he says without hesitation. “I would love to do something like that.” Well, they are sadly now short of a drummer … Yes, he says. “Maybe one of the Rolling Stones might read this! Please make it happen!” Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducts the Philharmonia at the Marlowe, Canterbury, on 1 November; De Montfort Hall, Leicester, on 3 November; and at the Royal Festival Hall, London, on 4 and 7 November. Details philharmonia.co.uk/whats-on/