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Kaija Saariaho

Profile via TMDB · Courtesy of TMDB

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Kaija Saariaho

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Also known as Kaija Laakkonen, Kaija Anneli Saariaho

Finnish composer (1952–2023)

Person · Open Library

Works
20

Top works

  • NoaNoa for Flute and Electronics
  • Prisma
  • Sarriaho
  • Le passage des frontières
  • al-Umm Adrīyānā

via Open Library + Wikidata

Film & TV

Sound · Helsinki, Finland

Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music and opera.

Known for

  • The Echoes of the Universe – The Music of Kaija Saariaho — Self2023
  • Kaija im Porträt - Konzert und Dokumentation — Self2022

via TMDB

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Female
Origin
France
Active from
1952
Active to
2023
classicalcomposercontemporary classicalfinnishfinnish composermodern classical

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
43,317
Total plays
388,823

Tags

contemporary classicalAvant-GardeClassicalfinnishcomposers

Kaija Saariaho (* 14. October 1952 in Helsinki; † 2. June 2023 in Paris) was a Finnish composer. For 13 years Saariaho attended the Helsinki Rudolf Steiner School, a school with a strong arts and music curriculum, and studied violin and piano at the Sibelius Academy. She later studied composition in Freiburg (under Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber) and at IRCAM in Paris, where she has lived since 1982. Saariaho was influenced by post-serialism <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Kaija+Saariah

via Last.fm · Kaija Saariaho

Key facts

Born
Kaija Laakkonen , ( 1952-10-14 ) 14 October 1952, Helsinki , Finland
Died
2 June 2023 (2023-06-02) (aged 70), Paris, France
Era
Contemporary
Works
List of compositions
Spouse
Jean-Baptiste Barrière [ de ; fr ] ​ ​ ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1984 ) ​
Children
2, incl. Aleksi Barrière
Website
https://saariaho.org/

via Wikipedia infobox

Works in European collections

1 object attributed to Kaija Saariaho, held across European museums, libraries & archives · via Europeana

~12 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Kaija Anneli Saariaho ( Finnish: [ˈkɑi̯jɑ ˈsɑːriɑho]; née Laakkonen; 14 October 1952 – 2 June 2023) was a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho received commissions from the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the BBC, the New York Philharmonic, the Salzburg Music Festival, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and the Finnish National Opera, among others. In a 2019 composers' poll by BBC Music Magazine, Saariaho was ranked the greatest living composer.

Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg, and Paris, where she also lived since 1982. Her research at the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) marked a turning point in her music away from strict serialism towards spectralism. Her characteristically rich, polyphonic textures are often created by combining live music and electronics.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Kaija Saariaho” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.