Kaija Saariaho is one of the best-known contemporary Finnish composers. Her compositions are characterized by lush, polyphonic textures that are frequently created by combining traditional orchestral instruments with electronic sounds.
Saariaho was born in Helsinki in 1952. Although her family was "without any kind of cultural background," she nevertheless became fascinated with music at a young age and soon realized that she wanted to become a composer. She studied at the Sibelius Academy and later moved to Germany to study at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg. However, she was frustrated with her teachers’ opposition to melody and their emphasis on strict serialism and mathematical structures, and thus went on to attend courses in computer music that were being given by IRCAM, the computer music research institute in Paris, where she has lived since 1982.
One of her best-known works is her 2008 Laterna Magica, a twenty minute, single movement piece for a large orchestra. Although there is much agreement that it has some beautiful moments, critical review has been mixed.
Her first opera, L'Amour de loin, premiered in 2000 in Salzburg, where it received a very favorable reception. The libretto is based on a biography of the twelfth-century troubadour Jaufré Rudel and explores complex topics including loneliness and the craving for belonging and illusion and reality. In 2016 this five-act work became the first opera by a female composer to be staged by the Metropolitan Opera since 1903 and only its second ever by a female composer.