In memoriam: Kaija Saariaho
ARTICLE | 05, JUNE 2023
Finnish composer, Kaija Saariaho, has sadly died in her home in Paris, aged 70, due to brain cancer.
Kaija Anneli Saariaho (1952 – 2023)
“Kaija Anneli Saariaho (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.” – anon.
She studied at the Sibelius Academy under Paavo Heininen. After attending the Darmstadt Summer Courses, she moved to Germany to study at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg under Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber. In 1980, Saariaho went to the Darmstadt Summer Courses and attended a concert of the French spectralists Tristan Murail and Gerard Grisey, and heard ‘spectral music’ for the first time. In 1982, she began work at IRCAM researching computer analyses of the sound-spectrum of individual notes produced by different instruments.
You were not allowed to have pulse, or tonally oriented harmonies, or melodies. I don’t want to write music through negations. Everything is permissible as long as it’s done in good taste.
– Saariaho on her studies in Freiburg
Selected awards
1986 – Kranichsteiner Prize at Darmstädter Ferienkurse
1988 – Prix Italia for Stilleben
1989 – Prix Ars Electronica for Stilleben and Io; one-year residency at the University of San Diego
2000 – Nordic Council Music Prize for Lonh
2003 – Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa by the Faculty of Arts, University of Turku
2003 – Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa by the Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki
2003 – University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for L’Amour de loin
2008 – Musical America “Musician of the Year 2008”
2009 – Wihuri Sibelius Prize
2010 – invited by Walter Fink to be the 20th composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival; the second female composer after Sofia Gubaidulina
2011 – Léonie Sonning Music Prize
2011 – Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording (L’amour de loin)
2013 – Polar Music Prize
2017 – BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Contemporary Music
2021 – Leone d’oro di Venezia, Biennale della Musica Contemporanea
Selected compositions
Petals (1988; cello, electronics)
L’Amour de loin (2000; opera
Sept Papillons (2000; solo cello)
La Passion de Simone (2006; oratorio/opera)
Adriana Mater (2006; opera, libretto by Amin Maalouf)
Notes on Light (2006; cello concerto)
Circle Map (2012; orchestra)
Maan varjot (“Earth’s Shadows”) (2013; organ and orchestra)
True Fire (2014; baritone and orchestra)
Innocence (2018; opera)
Innocence
This year, the Royal Opera House debuted the UK performance of Saariaho’s haunting, most recent opera, Innocence.
“Set to music of ‘sublime terror’ (The New Yorker) by Kaija Saariaho, Sofi Oksanen’s multi-layered libretto explores the legacy of violence and its ripple-effect across the years. The long-awaited premiere of Innocence promises to be an unmissable event, with a starkly dramatic staging by Simon Stone, director of Yerma (2017) at the Young Vic and The Dig (2021), and conducted by Susanna Mälkki in her House debut.” – Royal Opera House, UK
Elizabeth Hardman is Soprano & PhD Researcher
Music PhD | OOC-DTP Studentship | “Confronting canonicity and promoting diversity: Gender and contemporary concert programming”
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
You can find her on Twitter @Lizzylikespie or on her website.
