The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) has appointed the American conductor Karina Canellakis as its principal guest conductor from September.

Canellakis, 38, began her career as a violinist, performing as soloist, chamber and orchestral musician. She played for two years with the Berlin Philharmonic as a member of its Academy Orchestra, then spent several years with the Chicago Symphony. She has also appeared as a guest leader of orchestras including the Bergen Philharmonic. She began conducting professionally in 2013 and made her European debut in 2015.

Canellakis burst on to the British orchestral scene last summer when she conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the opening night of the Proms. But her relationship with the London Philharmonic Orchestra began the previous autumn when she made her debut with them at the Royal Festival Hall. The spark was immediate, she says.

“We musically fell in love with each other. Our temperaments are perfectly matched,” she says. “The LPO can literally play anything, and they can do it so quickly that the amount of rehearsal time they need to get to the absolute highest level is so small that I was amazed and impressed.

“We can create something really special in all the different corners of the repertoire I want to explore together.”

Canellakis grew up in a musical family in New York, her mother a pianist and her father a conductor, and she took conducting classes on the side while majoring in violin studies. “I had always loved it and was fascinated by scores,” she says. “It never occurred to me that this was not something for a girl to do.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Canellakis conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the 2019 Proms. Photograph: Chris Christodoulou/BBC

As a violinist, she always yearned to see the full orchestral picture. “I felt slightly frustrated by only being able to see the violin line. Each break I’d look at the score, dying to know the details of the other instruments and why it sounded that way, why I got goosebumps at certain moments, and how you can physically translate that to a large group of people with your hands and your face without making a sound. It’s an amazing feat of human communication.”

Simon Rattle spotted the young violinist’s interest in conducting when she was part of the Berlin Philharmonic’s orchestra academy from 2005-07, and encouraged her to develop her talent. “Moving away from the violin was terrifying because I love playing and I had a great life as a violinist,” she says. “But I felt this fire inside of me that if I didn’t give conducting a shot I would regret it.

After two years in the Juilliard School’s conducting programme, in 2016 she won the prestigious Georg Solti conducting award. Her rise to the top of the profession has been rapid by any standards. Last month Canellakis made her debut with the London Symphony Orchestra, and she has appeared as a guest with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the symphony orchestras of San Francisco and Minnesota, and the Munich Philharmonic.

“My role models were the inspiring people I played under: Boulez. Rattle. Haitink … and my teachers … Alan Gilbert and Fabio Luisi,” she says. “I’ve never been at the receiving end of comments about my gender. I’m part of a generation who doesn’t need to worry about it. I have only ever thought about conductors in terms of what they brought to the sound.”

The era of the dictator conductor – the “maestro” – is long gone, she says. “The role of a conductor is much more collegial and collaborative than it used to be. You want to make music with the orchestra, not impose your concept of a piece on it.”

She concedes that the shift from player to podium was a leap. “You have to adjust your sense of identity and learn that you are the boss,” she says. “It is your responsibility how this rehearsal goes – which means everything from the atmosphere, the way you speak to people, how efficient you are with the rehearsal time. You need to be able to assess very quickly what needs work and what you can leave for the next day.”

In a period of global lockdown, live music seems a more precious asset than ever. “This crisis can allow many of us a moment to reflect on what we are truly grateful for,” says Canellakis. “I feel hope and inspiration when I think about going back to rehearsing and performing with my colleagues, coupled with fear and sadness because it’s become painfully clear that music is my life and my life is music – without being able to share that sacred, magical world with colleagues and audiences, my daily existence loses its most essential core.”

Canellakis is scheduled to conduct four Royal Festival Hall concerts with the LPO in the 2020/21 season. Her first concert with them, on 3 October, will pair Beethoven’s Symphony No 8 with John Adams’s concerto for string quartet, Absolute Jest.