Swedish pianist and composer, born 4 May 1963 in Danderyd.
He has studied piano playing for Gunnar Hallhagen. He made his debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1981 and has since performed with most of the major symphony orchestras in Europe, the United States, Korea, South America, Australia and New Zealand. He has collaborated with conductors such as Myung-Whun Chung, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Leif Segerstam, Jevgenij Svetlanov, Franz Welser-Möst and David Zinman.
Pöntinen has made more than 90 gramophone recordings at various companies.
He is to some extent also active as a composer and has composed solo works, chamber music and works for solo instruments and orchestra such as Blue Winter for trombone and string orchestra (1987) and a concerto for piano and wind orchestra (1994).