Jorma Panula (born 10 August 1930 in Kauhajoki) is a Finnish conductor, composer, and teacher of conducting. He has mentored many notable Finnish conductors, such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mikko Franck, Sakari Oramo, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and Osmo Vänskä.
Panula studied church music and conducting at the Sibelius Academy. His teachers included Leo Funtek, Dean Dixon, Albert Wolff and Franco Ferrara. Apart from conducting, he has composed a wide variety of music. His operas Jaakko Ilkka and the River Opera established a new genre called "performance opera", which fused music, visual art and the art of daily life. Panula's other compositions include musicals, church music, a violin concerto, jazz capriccio and numerous pieces of vocal music.
Panula was the artistic director and chief conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra from 1963 to 1965, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from 1965 to 1972 and the Aarhus Symphony from 1973 to 1976. He has also conducted his own opera Jaakko Ilkka at the Finnish National Opera.