Kristjan Järvi on ‘shaping the music at all levels’ with the Baltic Sea Philharmonic

Music around the Baltic would be much less interesting without the Järvi family. As conductors, father Neeme and sons Paavo and Kristjan have become the engines of Estonia's emergence as an important musical nation, as well as achieving much more around the world, of course. This month all three are back in their homeland, conducting at the Pärnu Festival by the sea in the south of the country. Their career paths, though, have been very different. In the 1970s Neeme had an established reputation as one of the best conductors in the Soviet Union, 'but,' says Kristjan, 'my father had two big problems with the authorities; firstly, he was from Estonia and therefore not of interest to the orchestras in Moscow and Leningrad, and secondly he refused to join the Communist Party, which meant he was automatically limited in what he was allowed to do. He had reached that limit in Tallinn so in 1979, when I was seven, we all managed to get out, just taking two suitcases. When we got to America, we had contacts, but my father had no job, no engagements, nothing. We had no idea how it would work out.'

But work out, it did. Neeme Järvi was soon a favourite with the American orchestras and then in the UK with the Scottish National Orchestra, and Chandos Records in its first years, making recordings that quickly established his name in the West. Meanwhile, Kristjan attended the Manhattan School of Music and later the University of Michigan, becoming a US citizen at the age of 13. 'I was a good kid,' he says with a grin, as though that couldn't last. He followed in his father's conducting footsteps, in his twenties moving to California to be Esa-Pekka Salonen's assistant at the Los Angeles Philharmonic – another Baltic connection. 'I had fantastic years, 20 as a serious conductor, in America but I was an industry kid.'

(Image courtesy of Kristjan Järvi)

While classical music was his rock, Kristjan was drawn to much more experimental music-making, and back in New York he founded the Absolute Ensemble, which mixed classical-derived work with hip-hop and jazz. 'I was suffocated by institutional parameters,' he says, 'I wanted to go way beyond cool classical. So Absolute, a sort of larger version of the Kronos Quartet, was part of those initial instincts.' He has become the embodiment of the age of eclecticism, taking methods of presentation, techniques, musical impulses and performance practice from everything available to musicians in the 21st century.

Fifteen years ago, along with his friend, festival director Thomas Hummel, he put together the Baltic Sea Philharmonic (BSP) – a project orchestra of young people from the region who were prepared to throw out all the preconceptions of what an orchestra looks like and how it behaves in the concert hall. They wear whatever they like (mainly t-shirts), move around, play from memory, do not stand or sit in recognised sections (though the brass do tend to drift together towards the back) and don't have music stands. Kristjan and I spoke backstage in the Max Littman Saal at Bad Kissingen, in Bavaria, before the gently chaotic rehearsal that saw him balance syncing a light show and backing track with maintaining a sense of improvised freedom on the platform. Later, over a drink after the hugely successful show Midnight Sun, which incorporated elements of Sibelius' Second Symphony and Stravinsky's Firebird into an hour-long textural soup of sound, I wondered whether any of the players looked down at a sneaky iPad at their feet. I was told firmly by oboist Evelina Boksa that there was no need. 'Make mistakes, they're OK,' Kristjan tells them. 'Besides, if you know you can make mistakes, you'll find you won't.'

For those players who have been part of the BSP since the start, this is not news. They are now young in spirit rather than years, as is Kristjan himself. 'This is a journey, in every programme but as individuals too. The orchestra has got the spirit and we've now come to the position where the players are writing for us.' A piece by harpist Liis Jürgens was worked into the Midnight Sun mix. 'We can be playful, childlike, a creativity collective. We can't be that if we're afraid of making mistakes.' As to his role, sometimes using outstretched fingers, sometimes just standing or dancing with his elbows keeping time like an old band leader from 1940s jazz combos, sometimes grabbing a shaman drum and using it to give the beat, he sees little difference between his composing and conducting. 'It's shaping the music at all levels – about being a giver, not a taker.'

In 2008, when the BSP started, it was the first time in nearly a century that musicians were relatively free to travel and play together all round the coast of the Baltic. All but one of the states were in the European Union and Russia was more open than usual. Gradually, as Russia tightened up again, the boundaries began to be reimposed and, since the invasion of Ukraine, the border has closed all together. 'We do have Russian players, but they are those who are based around the rest of Europe. We are a unified organism from a region of humanity, not a collection of flags.'

He is deeply sorry for those caught up in the political turmoil because that is the basis of his own family's story. Now that they are all able to perform as they want in the same festival at home in Estonia, Kristjan understands how lucky they have been since that defection in 1979. 'It is so hard for people there to see the truth. In Russia they are caught between two fears: their own danger and the instinct that no one wants to believe their own government is so bad. As in any society, the most enlightened are caught in a frenzy of manipulation, just pawns in this game.'