Kaija A. Saariaho

Saariaho was a contemporary composer trained in high modernism, post-serialism, and musique spectrale by the likes of Brian Ferneyhough, Gérard Grisey, and IRCAM. She absorbed all the most advanced trends but then transcended the theoretical to create work of such immediate, human appeal that it defied labels and categories. Her masterwork was the haunting first opera L'Amour de loin (2000), which premiered at the Salzburg Festival and has since been produced in Santa Fe, Paris, Bern, Darmstadt, Helsinki, Toronto, London, and other cities. Her Passion de Simone (2006) was a wrenching portrait of the self-martyred Simone Weil. Like the majority of her most riveting work, its libretto is by the Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf, and its striking staging by Peter Sellars. Her awards included the Kranichsteiner Preis (1986), Grawemeyer Prize (2003), Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording (2011), the Léonie Sonning (2011) and Polar (2013) Music Prizes.