Geographical classification

Europe > Finland

Socio-cultural movements

Late modern period / Contemporary period > Musical movements since the end of the 19th century > Classical music > Electronic music

Late modern period / Contemporary period > Musical movements since the end of the 19th century > Classical music > Electroacoustic music

Groups by dedication

Musicians > Composers

Character
Fotografía

Kaija Anneli Saariaho

Helsinki 1952 ‖ París 2023

Period of activity: From 1977 until 2020

Geographical classification: Europe > Finland

Socio-cultural movements

Late modern period / Contemporary period > Musical movements since the end of the 19th century > Classical music > Electronic music

Late modern period / Contemporary period > Musical movements since the end of the 19th century > Classical music > Electroacoustic music

Groups by dedication

Musicians > Composers

Context of feminine creation

Within an avant-garde language, Kaija Saariaho stands out for her work in vocal music and above all in stage music, with several operas to her credit. Composers who have stood out in the world of opera have been, among others, the Englishwomen Ethel Mary Smyth (1858-1944) and Elizabeth MaConchy (1907-1994), the Scottish Thea Musgrave (1928) and Judith Weir (1954), the Australian Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1928), the Australian Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1907-1994), and the Scottish Thea Musgrave (1928), among others, the Australian Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912-1990), the French Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983), the American Alice Shields (1943) and the Spanish Matilde Salvador (1918-2007), Raquel García-Tomás (1984) and Anna Tena (1994).
Like the latter, Saariaho has frequently used electronic and computer resources. Among the women composers who preceded Saariaho and who composed works with or without electroacoustics were the Americans Hilda Fanny Dianda (1925), Nancy Van de Vate (1930), Elaine Barkin (1932-2023), Alicia Urreta (1933-1987), Gloria Coates (1934), Alicia Terzián (1934) and Jacqueline Nova (1935-1975). Meredith Monk (1942), Laurie Spiegel (1945), Laurie Anderson (1947), Odaline de la Martinez (1949) and Libby Larsen (1950). 

On the European continent, Tera de Marez Oyens (1932), Paulina Oliveiros (1932), Teresa Procaccini (1934), Barbara Heller (1936), Constanza Capdeville (1937-1992), Marta Ptaszynska (1943), Joanna Bruzdowicz (1943) and Françoise Barrière (1944) stand out. They are joined by Israel's Ran Shulamit (1949) and Russia's Sofia Gubaidulina (1931).

The Spanish composers who are beginning to venture into electronics are María Luisa Ozaita (1939-2017), Leonora Milà (1942) and Bofill Leví, Anna (1944). 

Contemporaries of the Finnish composer are, among others, the American Anne LeBaron (1953), the Romanian Violeta Dinescu (1953) and Adriana Hölszky (1953), and the Swiss Regina Irman (1957). 

Composers who follow Saariaho's line are the Spanish composers Diana Pérez Custodio (1970), Iluminada Pérez Frutos (1972), Gloria Rodríguez (1972), Montserrat Torras (1973) and Sonia Megías (1982).

Review

Finnish composer dedicated to the spectral study of the sound produced by traditional instruments, essentially from Nordic and Eastern culture. She has developed new compositional techniques, using live electronics and computer assistance. Her more than two hundred and forty compositions have been premiered in the world's leading concert halls and have been awarded the most important composition prizes.

Justifications

  • Finnish composer belonging to the contemporary musical movement.
  • Her extensive output covers all genres, from opera to instrumental music.
  • She has received numerous awards in recognition of her professional career.
  • She is noted for her research into the qualities of sound regardless of the source of production.
  • His compositions have been performed in the world's leading concert halls.

Biography

Kaija Saariaho was born in Helsinki in 1952 and studied at the Sibelius Academy. She continued her studies in Freiburg and at summer courses in Darmstadt and, from 1982, at the IRCAM research institute in Paris. 
In the meantime, Saariaho became acquainted with French spectralist composers, whose techniques are based on computer analysis of the sound spectrum. This analytical approach inspired her to develop her own method for creating harmonic structures, as well as detailed notation using harmonics, micro tonality and a detailed continuum of sound extending from pure pitch to pitchless noise: all features found in one of her most frequently performed works, Graal théâtre for violin and orchestra or ensemble (1994/97). 
At IRCAM, Kaija developed computer-assisted compositional techniques and became fluent in working on tape and with live electronics. This experience influenced her approach to writing for orchestra, with its emphasis on the formation of dense masses of sound in slow transformations.

Significantly, his first orchestral piece, Verblendungen (1984), involves a gradual exchange of roles and characters between orchestra and tape.  
In 2000 he achieved outstanding success with the opera L'Amour de loin, based on an early biography of the 12th century troubadour Jaufré Rudel, for which he received the prestigious Grawemeyer Prize. In 2010 he premiered the opera Emilie, based on the life of the mathematician Émilie de Châtelet. 
The experience of writing for voices has led to a certain clarification of Saariaho's language, with a new modal-oriented vein.  
In the profusion of large and small works that Saariaho has produced in recent years, two features have marked his career, the close and productive association with individual artists and the choice of themes and texts and in the profusion of expressive marks in his scores, to make his music not an elaboration of abstract processes but an urgent communication from the composer to the listener of ideas, images and emotions.

Saariaho has won major composition prizes: The Grawemeyer Award, The Wihuri Prize, The Nemmers Prize, The Sonning Prize and the Polar Music Prize.  
A professor in the Department of Music at Berkeley in 2015, she premiered her latest opera Innocence in France in 2021.

Works

Spanish

Selección aleatoria de la relación de obras que recoge

<https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaija_Saariaho>   (26-12-2022)

1977-1986 

  • Bruden, ciclo de canciones para soprano, 2 flautas y 2 percusionistas (1977)  
  • Canvas, para flauta (1978)  
  • Cartolina per Siena, para cinta magnética (1979)
  • Yellows, para violonchelo y percusión (1980)  
  • Kolme preludia, para soprano y órgano (1981)
  • Adjö, para soprano, flauta y guitarra (1982)  
  • Verblendungen, para orquesta (1982-84)  
  • Three Interludes and other music to "Skotten i Helsingfors" (1983)  
  • Kollisionen, para percusión y electrónica (1984)  
  • Jardin secret II, clavecín y cinta (1984-86)  
  • Csokolom, grabación de objetos escénicos (1985)  
  • Il pleut, para soprano y piano (1986)  
  • Il pleut, para soprano y piano (1986)  
  • Io, para conjunto instrumental y electrónica en vivo (1986-87)  

1987-1996 

  • Piipää. Música para multi-media performance. Soprano, tenor, tape y electrónica en vivo (1987)  
  • Petals, para violonchelo solo, con electrónica en vivo opcional (1988)  
  • Du cristal, para orquesta sinfónica (1989-90)  
  • Fanfaari, para orquesta de cámara (1990)  
  • Aer, para arpa y electrónica ad libitum (1991)  
  • NoaNoa, Fragrant, para flauta y electrónica (1992)  
  • Solar, para grupo instrumental (con sintetizador) (1993)  
  • Graal Theâtre, para violín y orquesta (1994)  
  • Château de l'âme, para soprano, 8 voces femeninas y orquesta (1995)
  • Lonh, para soprano y electrónica (1996)  

1997-2006 

  • Mirrors, para flauta y violonchelo (1997)  
  • Liisan taikahuilu, para flauta (1998)
  • L'amour de loin (1998-2000)
  • Prisma. Electronic music (1999)  
  • Sept Papillons, para violonchelo (2000)  
  • Tag des Jahrs, para coro mixto y electrónica (2001)    
  • Orion, para orquesta (2002)  
  • Adriana Mater (2002-2006)  
  • Lumen valosta, para vocal ensemble (2003)  
  • Asteroid 4179: Toutatis, para orquesta (2004)  
  • Ballade, para piano (2005)  
  • Notes on Light, para violonchelo y orquesta Música (2006)   

2006-2020

  • Émilie, ópera (2010)  
  • Frises, para violín y electrónica (2011)  
  • Duft, para clarinete (2012)  
  • Ciel d'hiver, para grupo orquestal (2013)  
  • Light and Matter, para piano, violín y violonchelo (2014)  
  • Trans, para grupo orquestal con arpa solista (2015)
  • Sense, para violín ( 2016)  
  • Saarikoski-laulut, orquesta con soprano (2017)  
  • Innocence, para orquesta, solistas vocales y coro (2018)  
  • Vista, para orquesta (2019)  
  • Semafor, para grupo instrumental (2020)  

Bibliography

Litti, Sanna (1991). “Värin ja ajan illuusiot”, in Sävellys ja musiikinteoria, nº1, p.16. 

Litti, Sanna (1993). Mutta tämähän on maisema, madame Saariaho: Kaija Saariahon Lichtbogen. Master’s tesis. Helsinki: Sibelius-Academy.

Mallet, Frank (2000). “Kaija Saariaho: de subtiles connexions entre lumière et son”, en Le Monde de la Musique nº 8, p.51. 

Michel, Pierre (2000). Music to be Heard: On Kaija Saariaho’s Oeuvre. Salzburg: Festspiele. 

MUGI: Musik und Gender im Internet: 
<https://mugi.hfmt-hamburg.de/receive/mugi_person_00000703?XSL.back=S>  (25/04/2022)

Nuorvala, Juhani (1995). “Kaija Saariaho,” in Finnish Composers. Helsinki: Finnish Music Information Center. 

Saariaho, Kaija (1987). “Timbre and Harmony: Interpolations of Musical Structures”, in Contemporary Music Review 1.2. London: Harwood Academic Publishers, pp. 106-22. 

Saariaho.org, 25/04/2022, <https://saariaho.org/>

Sivuoja-Gunaratnam, Anne (1998). “Rhetoric of Transitions in Kaija Saariaho’s Music”, Musical Signification Between Rhetoric and Pragmatics, Gino Stefani, Eero Tarasti and Luca Marconi, eds. Bologna: CLUEB, p.539. 
 
Wise music Classical, 25/04/2022, <https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/composer/1350/Kaija-Saariaho/> 

Didactic approach

It is recommended for listening in Secondary Education when discussing Contemporary, incidental or electronic music.  
Although Kaija Sariaaho's work is accessible to the listener from the traditional writing in which electronic resources are interwoven, the interpretative study requires the technical mastery of the instrument to reproduce the writing of the sound, its effect and timbres. Its study is recommended in the Bachelor's Degree in Music. 

At the University, in Teacher Training, its use is relevant in subjects with competences in listening, didactics and musical analysis, making the music of women composers visible and valuing it.

Documents