| Program Notes - Printer-Friendly (1436 words) |
 | Saariaho veered instead towards a musical career, studying at Helsinki University and the Sibelius Acadamy, where she was a pupil of Paavo Heininen, the composer, teacher, and musicologist who at that time was emerging as the eminence grise behind Finland’s ascent in the international musical avant-garde. |
| Saariaho’s compatriot Risto Niemanen, who has written extensively about her work, has referred aptly to her tendency towards “orchestration in miniature.” In fact, one might say that Saariaho “out-Weberns” Webern by extending her hyper-management of sound to include micro-intervals and expanding her orchestra to include subtle electronic effects. |
| As Saariaho’s crystal turns, refracting sound rather than light, the listener is left with a sensation that is not unlike peering into a kaleidoscope, its images reinvented with predictable regularity, its precise rearrangements of color creeping in so gradually that their significance may be clear only in retrospect. |
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