“Saariaho is one of the most prominent and original composers of her generation,” Underhill says. “Both the quality of her work and her recent passing makes this [concert] a very significant program for us.”

Featuring six of Saariaho’s works, the concert includes instrumental pieces, such as Notes on Light (2009) and Semafor (2020), as well as operatic pieces, including Miranda’s Lament (2000 version) sung by Robyn Driedger-Klassen.

Orchestrating colour

Born in Helsinki, Finland, Saariaho (1952–2023) was recognized as the “Greatest Living Composer” by a 2019 BBC Music Magazine survey of her peers. Her music has often been appreciated for its originality, a notion that resonates with Underhill.

“It had the sort of subtlety and the mixture of electronics with acoustic instruments,” he shares. “She was on the cutting edge.”

Saariaho’s innovative electronic style involved mixing instrumental amplifications with electronic synthesis. Underhill further notes that Saariaho was deeply interested in light and colour, particularly how they expose one’s innermost emotional world.

“The quality of the sound also changes, so it might go on a string instrument from very steely sounding to very soft sounding,” explains Underhill. “It’s like a living thing, always changing.”

Underhill first heard Saariaho’s works in the 1980s. Saariaho visited western Canada during the 1990s, holding a series of concerts in Banff, Calgary and Vancouver. Underhill worked with the composer at the concert held in the Banff Centre for the Arts.

“She’s a very gentle person but quite precise and quiet,” he recalls. “She’s not a flashy composer – she wasn’t a flashy person either – but the content of her work is very powerful even if it is gentle.”

For the artistic director, Saariaho’s originality lies in her ability to bring new colours to sounds. Beginning in the 1980s, she joined other composers in Paris, breaking down sounds into spectrums. Underhill sees this curiosity for colour as related to her interest in light.

“Her last couple decades of composing were working on how to translate these ideas about colour and light into instrumental composition,” he adds. “In addition to pitches, it’s just as important [to consider] the colour of the sound.”

Mysterious listening

In her later years, Saariaho turned her writing attention to the operatic arts. The TPE’s upcoming concert features operatic pieces based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

“Her music has a kind of mysterious quality,” Underhill says. “When instrumental pieces and vocal pieces come together, they have the same type of poetic quality.”

The program also includes another vocal piece, Changing Light (2002). Containing text translated from Hebrew by Rabbi Jules Harlow, this composition was written solely for violin and the soprano voice. Underhill looks forward to Driedger-Klassen’s performance of the vocals.

“And then we’re doing one piece which is the final aria of her first opera; it’s an arrangement for soprano and chamber ensemble,” says Underhill of the program’s other operatic piece, titled Vers toi qui es si loin (2016). “That one is very, very beautiful.”

Based on a medieval love story, this piece portrays a male singer discovering a countess who shares his idea of love; however, he falls to illness in his pursuit. As the conductor, Underhill works to “unveil the true sound inside the music,” guiding musicians to bring out the details of her colours.

“It’s like a painter: you paint a bit of high piccolo with low double bass, and maybe a soloist has got a shifting sound in the middle of it,” he describes.

For him, Saariaho’s music has a contemporary quality; it is subtle, delicate, but also incredibly intense. He sees the ensemble’s size as offering an intimate experience for the audience.

“You would really come away from that concert with a much deeper understanding or knowledge of her music, even if you knew her music in advance,” he says. “But if you don’t, you would have an opportunity to hear one of the major composers of her generation.”

For more information, see: www.turningpointensemble.ca/kaija-saariaho-notes-on-light