Kaija Saariaho biography, Kaija Saariaho discography
October 14, 1952) is a Finnish composer.Kaija Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she has lived since 1982.Her studies and research at IRCAM have had a major influence on her music and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures are often created by combining live music and electronics.Salzburg Festival (with a US premiere at the Santa Fe Opera in 2002), and Oltra mar for chorus and orchestra, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic.Life and work
Kaija Saariaho was born in Helsinki and studied music at the Sibelius Academy there.Everything is permissible as long as it's done in good taste."In 2000 she won the Nordic Council Music Prize for the work Lonh for soprano and electronics.Do you really want to delete this Module with all its data?Please delete all its Data first.Significantly, her first orchestral piece, Verblendungen (1984), involves a gradual exchange of roles and character between orchestra and tape.Rudel, received widespread acclaim in its premiere production directed by Peter Sellars at the 2000 Salzburg Festival, and won the composer a prestigious Grawemeyer Award.This page uses frames, but your browser doesn't support them.Few composers, in their music or their personas, are as otherworldly as
Kaija Saariaho.Kaija Saariaho is indeed of this world, though the earlier impression isn't
necessarily a mistaken one.Paris, and longed for a
solitary, mystical existence.Is that quality particularly important to you?I'm the first listener to my
music.Bern, Switzerland,
which was more symbolic, set in a single room filled with huge books.But I don't sense that you did.DPS: Which suggests that your opera is no longer yours.But at the dress
rehearsal at Santa Fe some people walked out, and I thought maybe music isn't
universal, maybe it won't reach these people.It made me very nervous.DPS: You had no input into the Bern production.What do
I know about that?The music supports a different kind of interpretation quite
well.There are things you can't realize
otherwise.DPS: But you don't seem much interested in traditional ensembles.Or do you begin
with an idea and take a journey with it?But I need to have
knowledge of the totality before I start.But I use functions so
that there is a feeling of release to something we know, to the material that I
introduce in the beginning.The music is very strongly in my
mind.How could it be from the real world?What music is of the real world?DPS: All too much, actually.KS: Titles are very important.They're very meaningful during the composition, and
sometimes the title is there from the beginning.Little by little, I realized I needed
to write it down.So little by little, I forced
myself toward composition.Any
ideas as to why that is?People there tend to be shy and isolated, yet have a very strong need
to express themselves.So music is good for that.There are many practical
reasons, of course.KS: I'm surrounded by the
French language.I'm writing a song cycle for Karita Mattila, and I spent a long time looking for a
Finnish text.I've always been very
strict with myself.DPS: Yet you speak Finnish to your children.KS: It's the only language I speak really well, and
one must always be clear with one's children.Were it not for the children, my
head would be in the clouds all the time and it would be very dangerous.The
young people in my family force me to see the light around me, even though the
social aspects are foreign to me.Peter Greenaway and directing the musical research
department at IRCAM.With two creative artists in the household, do you ever
get on each other's nerves?But we've been with each other 20
years, and from the beginning he was always very supportive of my music.DPS: Indeed, particularly with all the acclaim you've been getting.Do you
like working in America?DPS: Do Americans take direction more gracefully?KS: It should give me more pleasure than it does.You both set medieval poetry to music and make keen
explorations into abstract, unconventional sound.DPS: What living composers do you connect with?What effect did that have on you?KS: Before that, I could never imagine physical, dramatic action in my
opera.KS: Yes, but I don't speak about it.Will there be more in
the new one?KS: I know they are, actually.Two very different productions, in Paris and Bern, of what may well be the first great opera of the 21st century.In part II of this interview, Salonen talks about his own composing, balancing the two halves of his musical life, and his evolving philosophy on the L.Please read our privacy policy and terms of use for individuals or organizations.Basic biography
Before starting studying music, Kaija Saariaho studied visual arts at the University of Industrial Arts in Helsinki.Klaus Huber at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg.All of these words might come up, listening to Kaija Saariaho's music.The first time Saariaho is active in the musical world, is her participation in the Korvat auki!Flugelhorn, trombone, percussion, piano, guitar.Three songs for female quartet or choir.Text by Mika Waltari (Finnish).Female voice, dancer, tape and lights.Text from the Bible (in Finnish).Text by Solveig von Schoultz (in Swedish).Three Interludes and other music to "Skotten i Helsingfors".From the Grammar of Dreams.Flute, harpsichord, cello and live electronics.Solo baritone and clarinet, mandolin, guitar, harp, double bass.Jingle for the Centre Georges Pompidou.Double bass and optional electronics.Bass baritone and alto flute, harpsichord and cello.Text by William Shakespeare (in English).Second version composed in 1998.Oltra Mar, Seven Preludes for the New Millennium.Soprano, flute, harp, viola, cello.Quatre petits messages, Music for the stage work Unien kieliopista (From the Grammar of Dreams).Concerto for Flute and Orchestra.Text by Amin Maalouf (in French).S2) studied visual arts at the University of Industrial Art (now the University of Art and Design) in Helsinki before going on to study composition at the Sibelius Academy with Paavo Heininen from 1976 to 1981.Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber in Freiburg.She has lived in Paris since 1982, frequently working at IRCAM.Many noted institutions have commissioned compositions from her, including the Finnish National Opera, the BBC, IRCAM, the Lincoln Center in New York and the Salzburg Festival.PRISMA is a new multimedia object, pedagogic as well as playful and creative, which through the work of a particular composer, allows the music lover or the newcomer, regardless of their prior knowledge of music, to enrich their knowledge on the composition of our time.Instrumental writing, its interpretation, and the use of computers for composition, are entry points which allow insights in today's music while discovering the work of Kaija Saariaho.Can be viewed on PC and Macintosh computers and is available both in English and French versions.
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