Osmo Vanska, Risk-Taker With the Minnesota Orchestra, to Leave

Osmo Vanska, the conductor who made the Minnesota Orchestra a formidable musical force and bucked tradition by siding with its players during a bitter lockout, announced on Wednesday that he would step down as its music director in 2022.

His departure, which will come after 19 seasons, will close an eventful chapter in the orchestra’s history — one of strong artistic growth, followed by the near-death experience of a 16-month lockout and, after it ended in 2014, by continuing efforts to heal, rebuild and grow.

Torn between the musicians they work with and the boards and administrations they work for, music directors typically avoid taking sides in labor disputes. But Vanska made his support of the musicians increasingly clear as the long lockout stretched on.

“I felt that it was my orchestra, and I had to take care of it, whatever happens,” he recalled in a telephone interview. “I just felt the players were handled very unfairly.”

The lockout began after the orchestra’s management, citing recurring deficits, sought steep pay cuts from the players. Vanska resigned in protest in 2013, when the lockout forced the cancellation of crucial concerts at Carnegie Hall. He went on to conduct the locked-out musicians in their own concerts.

When the lockout ended, with the musicians approving smaller cuts, Vanska said he would return to his old post — but let it be known that he believed the orchestra needed new administrative leadership. He got it.

Since then the ensemble has expanded its horizons, becoming, in 2015, the first U.S. orchestra to tour Cuba after the Obama administration worked on a diplomatic rapprochement, and touring South Africa last summer to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s centenary. The musicians have taken on a greater role in artistic planning.

Ellen Dinwiddie Smith, a horn player and the chairwoman of the Musicians’ Artistic Advisory Committee, said in a statement that Vanska’s “belief in the Minnesota Orchestra sustained us and led us back to our place as one of the most productive and storied orchestras in the world.”

The ensemble, which won a Grammy Award for one of its acclaimed Sibelius recordings, is in the midst of recording a cycle of Mahler’s symphonies for Bis Records. Vanska, who appointed more than 40 percent of the current players, plans to continue to live in the area with his wife, Erin Keefe, the orchestra’s concertmaster, and expects to return for concerts after he steps down. As for what’s next for him, he said, “All doors are open.”