Kaija Saariaho facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Kaija Saariaho
Saariaho in 2013
Born	Kaija Laakkonen (1952-10-14)14 October 1952 Helsinki, Finland
Died	2 June 2023(2023-06-02) (aged 70) Paris, France
Era	Contemporary
Notable work	List of compositions
Spouse(s)	Jean-Baptiste Barrière ​ (m. 1984)​
Children	2

Kaija Saariaho (born Kaija Laakkonen; October 14, 1952 – June 2, 2023) was a famous Finnish composer. She lived in Paris, France, for most of her life. She was known for her unique music that often mixed live instruments with electronic sounds.

Many important groups and places asked her to create music. These included the Kronos Quartet, the BBC, the New York Philharmonic, and the Finnish National Opera. In 2019, a poll by BBC Music Magazine called her the greatest living composer.

Kaija Saariaho studied music in Helsinki, Freiburg, and Paris. Her time at a research center called IRCAM was very important. There, she started to create music that used sounds in new ways, moving away from older, strict rules. Her music often had many layers of sound, like different voices singing together. She made these rich sounds by combining real instruments with electronic music.

Life and Music

Kaija Saariaho was born in Helsinki, Finland. She started her music studies at the Sibelius Academy. Later, she went to Germany to study more. She found that some of her teachers focused too much on strict rules for composing. She felt this limited her creativity.

She once said:

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.

This means she wanted to be free to use all kinds of sounds and rhythms in her music.

In 1980, Kaija Saariaho heard a new type of music called "spectral music." This music focuses on the natural sounds of instruments. Hearing it changed her ideas about composing. She then decided to learn about computer music at IRCAM in Paris.

In 1982, she began working at IRCAM. She studied how different instruments make sounds. She learned to use computers to help her compose music. She also experimented with musique concrète, which uses recorded sounds from everyday life. She created her first pieces that combined live music with electronics. She also used a special computer program called CHANT to make new sounds.

Her works Jardin secret I (1985), Jardin secret II (1986), and Nymphea (Jardin secret III) (1987) were all made with computers. She worked closely with Jean-Baptiste Barrière, a composer and computer expert. They got married in 1984 and had two children.

In Paris, Saariaho started to focus on how sounds slowly change and blend together. For example, her piece Vers Le Blanc (1982) changes from one group of notes to another. Her piece Verblendungen changes from loud to quiet. This piece was also inspired by visual ideas, like a thick brush stroke that thins out.

In the 1980s and 1990s, she focused on the unique sound quality (called timbre) of instruments. She also used a lot of electronics with traditional instruments. For example, Nymphéa (Jardin secret III) (1987) is for a string quartet and live electronics. The musicians even whisper words from a poem. For Nymphea, she used a fractal generator, which is a computer tool that creates complex patterns.

She explained how she used computers:

The basis of the entire harmonic structure is provided by complex cello sounds that I have analysed with the computer. The basic material for the rhythmic and melodic transformations are computer-calculated in which the musical motifs gradually convert, recurring again and again.

This means she used computers to analyze sounds and create new musical ideas.

Kaija Saariaho often said she had a special way of experiencing the world, like synaesthesia. This means her senses were connected. She said:

... the visual and the musical world are one to me ... Different senses, shades of colour, or textures and tones of light, even fragrances and sounds blend in my mind. They form a complete world in itself.

This helped her create music that felt like different colors or textures.

Another example is Six Japanese Gardens (1994). This piece is for percussion instruments and recorded sounds of nature from Japan. She was inspired by Japanese gardens and architecture. She explored complex rhythms in this piece.

She said:

... I felt a connection between architecture and music: both art forms select and introduce materials, let them grow, give them form, prepare new contrasting elements, create different relations between the materials.

This shows how she saw similarities between building a structure and composing music.

In 2016, the Metropolitan Opera performed her opera L'Amour de loin. This was a big event because it was only the second opera by a female composer performed there in over a century. It was also the first opera by a female composer shown in cinemas as part of the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series.

Kaija Saariaho also supported music education. She gave a large amount of money to build a new organ at the Helsinki Music Centre. She also led a competition for new organ compositions.

Kaija Saariaho passed away in Paris on June 2, 2023, at the age of 70, after an illness.

Awards and Honours

Kaija Saariaho received many important awards for her music:

• 1986 – Kranichsteiner Prize
• 1988 – Prix Italia
• 1989 – Prix Ars Electronica
• 2000 – Nordic Council Music Prize
• 2003 – Honorary Doctorates from the University of Turku and the University of Helsinki
• 2003 – University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for L'Amour de loin
• 2008 – Musical America "Musician of the Year"
• 2009 – Wihuri Sibelius Prize
• 2011 – Léonie Sonning Music Prize
• 2011 – Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording (for L'amour de loin)
• 2013 – Polar Music Prize
• 2017 – BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award
• 2021 – Leone d'oro di Venezia, Biennale della Musica Contemporanea

Selected Works

Here are some of Kaija Saariaho's well-known compositions:

Selected Recordings

• Graal Théâtre – Gidon Kremer; BBC Symphony Orchestra; Esa-Pekka Salonen – Sony SK60817
• L'Amour de loin – Gerald Finley; Dawn Upshaw; Finnish National Opera; Esa-Pekka Salonen – Deutsche Grammophon DVD 00440 073 40264
• Nymphéa – Cikada String Quartet – ECM New Series 472 4222

Images for kids

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  Kaija Saariaho in 2013

See also

In Spanish: Kaija Saariaho para niños