Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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🎶 Support the channel: patreon.com/classicalnerd

0:00 Introduction
0:26 I: Ears Open!
17:00 II: IRCAM
34:53 III: Flute, Cello, Voice
48:01 IV: Breakthrough
57:35 V: The Electronic Multiverse
1:05:39 VI: Finns, Feminism, and Opera

📚 Sources/further reading:
“Kaija Saariaho” by Pirkko Moisala (University of Illinois, 2009)
“Kaija Saariaho: Visions, Narratives, Dialogues,” edited by Tim Howell, Jon Hargreaves, and Michael Rofe (Ashgate, 2011)
“Synthesis at the Frontiers: Kaija Saariaho and the Formation of a Practice” by Nathan Alexander Cobb (PhD dissertation, UC Santa Barbara, 2024)
“Encoding Post-Spectral Sound: Kaija Saariaho’s Early Electronic Music at IRCAM, 1982–87” by Landon Morrison (Music Theory Online, Volume 27, Number 3, September 2021)
“Timbral Transformations in Kaija Saariaho’s ‘From the Grammar of Dreams’” by Karen J. Siegel (PhD dissertation, CUNY, 2014)
“A Performer's Guide to the Solo Flute Works of Kaija Saariaho: ‘Laconisme de l'aile’ and ‘NoaNoa’” by Katayoon Hodjati (DMA research paper, Arizona State University, 2013)
“The Conductor’s Role in Electro-Acoustic Orchestral Music: Performance Practice Problems in Kaija Saariaho’s ‘Verblendungen’” by Dean Anderson (DMA dissertation, UCLA, 2015)
“Sound of Poetry, Poetry of Sound: An Analysis of Circle Map for Orchestra and Electronics by Kaija Saariaho” by Aida Khalilzadeh Shirazi (PhD dissertation, UC Davis, 2023)
“An Analysis of ‘Du cristal .. à la fumée’ by Kaija Saariaho” by John Clay Allen (MA thesis, University of North Texas, 2015)
“Kaija Saariaho’s Path to the Met: The Merger of Conventional and Unconventional Musical Devices in ‘L’amour de loin’” by Amy Lynn Prickett (DMA dissertation, University of Alabama, 2017)
“Musical Distance in Kaija Saariaho’s ‘L’amour de loin’” by Gabrielle Choma (MA thesis, University of Oregon, 2021)

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Music:

- Thomas Little Wingate: Dance! #2, performed by Rachel Fellows, Michael King, and Bruce Tippette
- Kaija Saariaho: Lichtbogen, performed by the Meitar Ensemble conducted by Matthias Pintscher: youtube.com/watch?v=v1kSr8rvMsY
- Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 2, performed by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony conducted by Susanna Mälkki: youtube.com/watch?v=iXU8EXL7a_4
- Kaija Saariaho: Im Traume, performed by Anssi Karttunen and Tuija Hakkila: youtube.com/watch?v=4oubVmC3CRE
- Kaija Saariaho: From the Grammar of Dreams, performed by Elizabeth Calleo and Valérie Philippin: youtube.com/watch?v=ezmc-WpkkHs
- Kaija Saariaho: Verblendungen, performed by the Stony Brook Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eduardo Leandro: youtube.com/watch?v=_IgLd6Yab54
- Kaija Saariaho: Laconism de L’Aile, performed by Esther Fredrickson and James Bean: youtube.com/watch?v=ps7lqL1TAmw
- Kaija Saariaho: Vers le blanc, reconstructed by Landon Morrison and Jean-Baptiste Barrière: mtosmt.org/issues/mto.21.27.3/mto.21.27.3.morrison.html
- Kaija Saariaho: Cendres, performed by Matteo Cesari, Alexis Descharmes, and Cédric Tiberghien: youtube.com/watch?v=83fpi9Q8F7M
- Kaija Saariaho: NoaNoa, performed by Anders Jonhäll: youtube.com/watch?v=pS4ny7GU_Os
- Kaija Saariaho: Terra Memoria, performed by the Pollock String Quartet: youtube.com/watch?v=0UMRl5iBOt0
- Kaija Saariaho: Six Japanese Gardens, performed by Shane Jones: youtube.com/watch?v=x7t-n3EDqpM
- Kaija Saariaho: Nymphéa (Jardin secret III), performed by Quatuor Adastra: youtube.com/watch?v=PZmzZxZyClA
- Kaija Saariaho: Petals, performed by Imke Frank and Gary Berger: youtube.com/watch?v=wkmzXHTrixI
- Kaija Saariaho: “St tu t’appelles Amour” from “L’amour de loin,” performed by Susanna Phillips and the Metropolitan Opera conducted by Susanna Mälkki: youtube.com/watch?v=DKBm9mKWJVU

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