In the summer of 2023, Kaija Saariaho passed away at the age of seventy. She was at the height of her fame and was celebrated as the composer who gave modernism a face that was both human and fairy-tale like. The Muziekgebouw pays tribute to her with the Saariaho Festival. A unique opportunity to get to know this ‘other-worldly music of a dreamlike quality’ (NRC). The festival will feature everything from Saariaho’s earliest spectral works to her last solo concerto. Meanwhile, the fringe programme offers a comprehensive look at her life and work.
Kaija Saariaho made a name for herself with electroacoustic works such as Lichtbogen (1986), and rose to greatness with the violin concerto Graal théâtre (1994) and the opera L’Amour de loin (2000). Since that time, she is known as the woman who knows how to touch the hearts of many with very modern musical techniques. The four-day Saariaho Festival, co-curated by Asko|Schönberg and her publisher, is the best crash course to fall in love with her work.