11 Facts About Kaija Saariaho

Kaija Saariaho studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg, and Paris, where she lived since 1982.

Kaija Saariaho played violin, guitar and piano growing up, and received her primary and secondary education at a Steiner school.

Kaija Saariaho found her Freiburg teachers' emphasis on strict serialism and mathematical structures stifling, saying in an interview:.

In 1980, Kaija Saariaho went to the Darmstadt Summer Courses and attended a concert of the French spectralists Tristan Murail and Gerard Grisey.

Kaija Saariaho developed techniques for computer-assisted composition, experimented with musique concrete, and wrote her first pieces combining live performance with electronics.

In Paris, Kaija Saariaho developed an emphasis on slow transformations of dense masses of sound.

In writing Nymphea, Kaija Saariaho used a fractal generator to create material.

Kaija Saariaho often talked about having a kind of synaesthesia, one that involves all of the senses, saying:.

Kaija Saariaho was the patron of the Helsinki Music Centre organ project and endowed the construction of a new organ in the Helsinki Music Centre with one million euros.

Kaija Saariaho was the chair of the International Kaija Saariaho Organ Composition Competition, which selected in April 2023 eleven compositions.

Kaija Saariaho died in Paris on 2 June 2023, at age 70.