SAARIAHO

Life&times

1952

LIFE: Kaija Saariaho is born in Helsinki, Finland. As well as showing an interest in music from an early age, she shares her parents’ enthusiasm for the visual arts. TIMES: As Helsinki hosts the Summer Olympic Games, the headlines are grabbed by Czechoslovak athlete Emil Zátopek, who wins the 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon events.

1977

LIFE: At the Sibelius Academy, she founds the Korvat auki! (‘Open your ears!’) contemporary group with fellow students Magnus Lindberg, Esa-pekka Salonen and others. TIMES: Two Soviet hijackers take over Aeroflot Tupolev Tu-134 plane, forcing it to land at Helsinki Airport. Their hostages escape, however, and the men are arrested and extradited.

1994

LIFE: Inspired by visits made during her spell as a composer in residence in Kyoto, she composes Six Japanese Gardens for percussion and electronics.

TIMES: Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and France’s President Mitterand take part in a ceremony to open the Channel Tunnel, six years after construction began.

1982

LIFE: After taking part in computer-based courses at Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/musique (IRCAM), she moves to Paris to work there more permanently. TIMES: The comic actor and filmmaker Jacques Tati,

whose best-known movies include 1953’s

Les Vacances de Monsieur

Hulot, dies in Paris at the age of 75.

2000

LIFE: Her opera L’amour de loin receives its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival. It will go on to become the first opera by a woman to be staged at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 113 years. TIMES: An Air France Concord crashes into a Paris hotel soon after take off from Charles de Gaulle Airport, killing 114 people in total.

2013

LIFE: She is presented with the Polar Music Prize by Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. Other composers to have previously won the award include Ligeti, Xenakis and Stockhausen. TIMES: French president François Hollande signs the bill making both same-sex marriage and adoption by same-sex couples legal.