25 June 2017 | 20:00

Sound Portraits #19: Kaija Saariaho

Doors: 19:30 / Start time: 20:00

Sound Portraits is a series of listening sessions, curated by Doron Sadja, focusing on the work of iconic composers who have paved the way for contemporary electronic music. After a short introduction of each artist's life and work, we will listen to a selection of excerpts and complete works from the artist’s repertoire. Besides providing an opportunity to introduce these seminal artists to a new audience, the Sound Portraits series also offers an open forum to engage in group listening in a quiet atmosphere. 

This session: Kaija Saariaho

Read more about the series at http://sound-portraits.tumblr.com

This event is part of the 48 stunden Neukölln festival: http://48-stunden-neukoelln.de/en/event/sound-portraits

Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer whose style is a melange of spectralism and musique concrete. Sonically her works are rich, textural and etherial and she regularly combines live music and electronics. She was one of the founding members the “Ears Open Society”, a collective formed in the 1977 to bring import, advocate and perform contemporary classical music in Finland. Saariaho then became the first woman to work at IRCAM, the computer music research institute in Paris in 1982. In addition to the traditional listening session, tonight’s Sound Portraits will feature a live performance of Saariaho’s work ‘Vent Nocturne’ for viola and electronics, performed by Doreen Ooi.