thin edge new music collective

Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023) was a leading voice of her generation of composers, in her native Finland and worldwide. She studied composition in Helsinki, Freiburg and Paris, where she lived from 1982 to her death. Her studies and research at IRCAM, the Parisian center for electroacoustic experimentation, had a major influence on her music, and her characteristically luxuriant and mysterious textures were often created by combining live performance and electronics.

After her breakthrough piece Lichtbogen for ensemble and electronics in 1986, Saariaho gradually expanded her musical expression to a great variety of genres, and her chamber pieces and choral music have become staples of instrumental and vocal ensembles, respectively. She rose to international preeminence as the composer of works taken up by symphony orchestras around the world, such as Oltra Mar (1999), Orion (2002), Laterna Magica (2008) and Circle Map (2012), as well as six concertos (including Graal Théâtrefor violin in 1994 and Notes on Light for cello in 2006), and five major symphonic song cycles (e.g. Château de l’âme in 1995 and True Fire in 2014), all of which bear the mark of her relentless attempt to blend the scientific, technological and rational with an approach grounded in poetic inspiration and resulting in deeply sensorial and associative experiences.

Saariaho’s broadest public and critical recognition came from her work in the field of opera: L’Amour de loin (2000), Adriana Mater (2006), La Passion de Simone (2006), Émilie(2010), Only the Sound Remains (2016) and Innocence (2020), the latter of which was termed Saariaho’s ‘masterpiece’ by The New York Times, were all warmly received at their premieres, and have enjoyed the rare privilege of global tours and multiple stage productions. Their ever-expressive treatment of voice and orchestra, as much as their commitment to renewing the form and the array of stories being represented on the largest stages, have made these six very different opuses classics of 21st-century opera already in the composer’s lifetime.

Saariaho claimed major composing awards such as the Grawemeyer Award, the Nemmers Prize, the Sonning Prize and the Polar Music Prize and two of her recordings have received Grammy Awards. She was named ‘Greatest Living Composer’ in a survey of her peers conducted by the BBC Music Magazine in 2019.

Kaija Saariaho’s life was prematurely interrupted by a brain tumor in 2023. Her musical legacy is carried forward by a broad network of collaborators with whom she has worked closely over the years, and her publisher Chester Music Ltd. 

www.saariaho.org

Throughout her life, Rebekah strongly believed in the transformative power inherent in the beauty of the diverse artistic forms she embraced with heightened sensitivity and creativity. A Balkan-infused flair is present in many of her works due to a deep-rooted fascination with her Bulgarian heritage. We see this with her use of irregular and changing meters typical of lively Bulgarian and Balkan dance forms, and the close harmonies, timbres, and unusual ornaments found in multi-part village singing styles observed in her works for female a cappella ensembles and other works. Rebekah’s style as a composer can be characterized as exhibiting the interplay of emotive intensity and quirky humor that is reminiscent, in her view, of the “gut-wrenchingly powerful and whimsically childlike” sounds of traditional Bulgarian singing. Her compositional output is also inspired by themes of life, growth, and transformation that are also at the heart of her creative expression in the visual arts.

Because of her lifelong delight in sound, be that from a cutlery drawer, a tree, a human voice, or musical instrument, Rebekah had a special affinity for electroacoustic composition, cross-pollinated with the human voice. As a singer-songwriter, she had begun to delve into the creation of a set of hybrid electroacoustic songs in 2019; unfortunately, she was unable to record an album because of terminal cancer.

Following many years of studying piano and working as a visual artist, Rebekah received a Bachelor of Music degree with honors of high distinction from Wilfrid Laurier University in 2012. There she studied composition with Peter Hatch and Linda Catlin Smith, electroacoustic music with Richard Windeyer, and piano with Heather Taves. While at Laurier, she was the only undergraduate student chosen to participate in the Soundstreams Young Artist Overture (2010) where she was mentored by James Rolfe in choral writing. The following year she wrote Liubima Moya, as part of Mass Affect, a group of student composer-pianists chosen to write and perform electroacoustic music for piano, mentored by John Kameel Farah, Kevin Saltarelli, and Heather Taves. This project culminated in a series of concerts, including the 21st Century Pianist Showcase at the March,2011 NUMUS Festival. In August of the same year, pianist Heather Taves performed Liubima Moya at the Klasik Keyifler festival in Capaddocia, Turkey.

Upon completing undergraduate studies, Rebekah established and directed Zamar Hamilton, a unique initiative focused on mentoring young composers through private lessons and group courses involving musicianship, composition (including electro-acoustic), song writing, and improvisation. During her four years with Zamar, she was able to curate and record seven concerts featuring nearly 200 world premieres by children and teen composers in Hamilton (www.soundcloud.com/zamar-hamilton). Though always eager to pursue her own artistic endeavours, Rebekah was passionate about cultivating creativity in others.

In 2016, Rebekah began graduate studies at the University of Toronto with Christos Hatzis as her supervisor and Dennis Patrick as a mentor in the sphere of electro-acoustic music. She obtained her MMus in Composition with honours of high distinction in September of 2018. During her two years at U. of T., Rebekah won many awards. These include the 2016 U. of T. String Quartet Competition award, the 2016 Ann H. Atkinson Prize in Electroacoustic Composition, and the 2017 Karen Kieser Prize in Canadian Music. In 2016 she received a commission to compose the finale for the Canadian Women Composers’ Project, and in 2017 she was selected as Composer in Residence for the University of Toronto’s Concert Orchestra. Her last composition, Our Strength, Our Song, completed just months before she died, was a piece funded by the Ontario Arts Council for the Mercer Duo (Rachel and Akemi Mercer), and recorded by Centrediscs in 2019 as part of a larger project showcasing Canadian women composers.

Rebekah’s music has been performed by a wide array of ensembles and soloists, including the Cecilia String Quartet, the Kitchener-Waterloo Chamber Orchestra, the Waterloo Chamber Players, the duo Stealth (Kathryn Ladano and Richard Burrows of TORQ), the Maureen Forrester Singers, cellist Rachel Mercer, the Ton Beau Quartet, the Mercer Duo (Rachel and Akemi Mercer), pianist Heather Taves, and the Kitchener-Waterloo and Georgian Bay Community Orchestras. She is a member of the Association of Canadian Women Composers.

www.rebekahcummingsartist.ca

Chiyoko Szlavnics is a Canadian-born composer and visual artist, based in Berlin since 1998. Her work spans acoustic and electroacoustic concert music and sound installations, exploring perceptual auditory phenomena—especially beating and combination tones—through pure intervals, clusters, non-unison tones, sustains, and glissandi.

Between 2000 and 2003, Szlavnics developed a distinctive compositional approach by using her own drawings as the foundation for musical structures. This method liberated her from traditional techniques and fostered a unique aesthetic that bridges sound and visual art.

Since 2005, she has created more than thirty commissioned works for soloists, ensembles, and international festivals dedicated to contemporary music. Her collaborators include Quatuor Bozzini, Eve Egoyan, Ensemble Contrechamps, Exaudi, Klangforum Wien, Musikfabrik, Donaueschinger Musiktage (2014 & 2017), Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony, and Klangspuren festival.

Szlavnics’ music has been featured on numerous European and North American radio broadcasts, and has been analyzed and presented in publications on contemporary music. Several portrait CDs have been released, including Memory Spaces (Neu Records, 2025), During a Lifetime (Another Timbre, 2015), and Gradients of Detail (World Edition, 2013). Further information is available at www.chiyokoszlavnics.org.

Music by Gayle Young places the tactile experience of sound in the foreground of a listener’s experience. In her text-based pieces Young’s evocative descriptions act as phantom conductors, shaping intricate details of sound.  In addition to composing for traditional instruments, Young creates sound installations, and performs on unique microtonal instruments she designed and built.

Young wrote The Sackbut Blues, the biography of pioneering electronic instrument inventor Hugh Le Caine (1914–1977).  As editor of Musicworks magazine over her decades, she established an inclusive perspective on the complex and multifaceted sound worlds that characterize experimental music today.

www.gayleyoungmusic.com

Paolo Griffin is a composer and curator based in Toronto/Tkarón:to whose work centers co-creation with performers, collaborating closely with friends and colleagues in a practice that spans sound, performance, text, improvisation, and includes the creation of notated music, live performance installations, and text scores.

With music praised for its ‘…rigor, clarity, and vision…” (Peter Margasak), Paolo’s compositional approach combines explorations of tuning systems with a rigorous, process-based approach to sonic form, structures, and forms of action/interaction between processes. 

Paolo is the Artistic & Executive Director of Freesound, a Toronto-based contemporary music collective of eight performers.

Paolo is an advocate of accessible arts and disability inclusive practices and works as the Managing Director of Xenia Concerts, each year designing and delivering adaptive, accessible, and sensory-friendly concerts for the autism and disability communities.

Paolo has given talks on his work in public and private settings, including lectures on his compositional practice at universities in The Netherlands, Finland, and Canada, and talks on his work in disability arts to charities, universities, and community organizations. 

Paolo is currently the Board Chair of Musicworks Magazine and sits on the Toronto Arts Council Music Policy Committee. His work is supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Toronto Arts Council, The Canadian Music Centre, the Ontario Arts Council, the SOCAN Foundation, and the Canadian New Music Network.

www.paologriffin.com