Kaija saariaho biography examples

Kaija Saariaho was a composer of great integrity and skill whose music reached a global audience. She studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and in Paris, where she lived from 1982.

Her Finnish background and research at IRCAM were a major influence on her music and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures were often created by combining live music and electronics.

With an impressive catalogue of chamber music, often created in collaboration with trusted performers with whom she fostered long-term collaborations, from the mid-nineties she turned increasingly to larger forces and broader structures: the operas L’Amour de loin (2000) and Adriana Mater (2005) were both commissioned by Gerard Mortier for Salzburg Festival and Opera de Paris respectively, and created with librettist Amin Maalouf and director Peter Sellars, with whom she also crafted the oratorio La Passion de Simone (2006), based on the life and writings of philosoph