Saariaho x Koh Jennifer Koh

• Kaija Saariaho (b. 1952): Tocar:
• 1Tocar06:51
• Cloud Trio:
• 2Cloud Trio: I. Calmo, meditato02:32
• 3Cloud Trio: II. Sempre dolce, ma energico, sempre a tempo03:22
• 4Cloud Trio: III. Sempre energico02:33
• 5Cloud Trio: IV. Tranquillo ma sempre molto espressivo05:01
• Light and Matter:
• 6Light and Matter13:53
• 7Aure (Version for Violin & Cello)05:47
• Graal theatre (Version for Violin & Chamber Orchestra):
• 8Graal theatre (Version for Violin & Chamber Orchestra): I. Delicato17:20
• 9Graal theatre (Version for Violin & Chamber Orchestra): II. Impetuoso10:19
• Total Runtime01:07:38

Info for Saariaho x Koh

Jennifer Koh, a “brilliant violinist” (The New Yorker) who performs with “conviction, ferocity, and an irresistible sense of play” (Washington Post), showcases works by Kaija Saariaho, the visionary and much-honored Finnish composer with whom Koh has closely collaborated and feels a deep personal bond.

The album offers the world-premiere recording of Saariaho’s Light and Matter for violin, cello, and piano, inspired by sunlit colors and shadows in a city park outside the composer’s window. Also receiving its first recording is the violin and cello version of Aure, meaning a gentle breeze, created for and dedicated to Koh and cellist Anssi Karttunen, another champion of Saariaho’s music.

The album’s largest work is the one that first attracted Koh to the composer: the violin concerto Graal théâtre, which Koh has performed many times and performs here in the composer’s chamber-orchestra version. Grove Music Online notes that the work illustrates “Saariaho’s rich and expansive string style, but places greater emphasis on melody than earlier works.”

Tocar, Spanish for “to touch,” explores the playful and tactile aspects of the word through violin and piano. Cloud Trio for violin, viola, and cello was prompted by shape-shifting clouds in the French Alps.

Saariaho X Koh is the violinist’s twelfth Cedille Records album in a discography that includes the Grammy-nominated String Poetic. In reviewing her album Bach & Beyond Part 2, ClassicsToday.com proclaimed, “When Jennifer Koh plays, people listen. Or they should.”

Notes by Anne Leilehua Lanzilotti: Kaija Saariaho’s string writing is beautiful and compelling. At moments the sound seems to lose all its weight, the timbre brightening with flutters of harmonics, evaporating suddenly. Other times, the sound presses to the edge of force, breaking purposefully. While Saariaho is known for her ability to create incredible operatic, digitally enhanced soundscapes, her compositional voice is marked by its timbral colors. Her demand of formal structures is made powerful by her intimate knowledge of string technique, allowing for these wonderful details.

Violinist Jennifer Koh remembers hearing Saariaho’s music and knowing immediately that this was someone she related to. In an interview for Meet the Composer, Koh said, “I almost felt like I knew that I would be close to [Saariaho] when I heard her music. . . . I felt like I understood this person.”

Aside from her longstanding collaborations with string players such as Koh and Anssi Karttunen, Saariaho herself has a unique relationship with the violin. In our conversations about this album, Saariaho recalled: "I started playing violin at the age of six — it was my first instrument. I then started playing piano at the age of eight. My early memories of playing violin are filled with smells: I always liked a lot the smell of a rosin, and my first teacher smoked a lot, and in fact he left me during the lesson to play alone to go to smoke in another room."

The evocative sound world Saariaho creates draws from all these senses. In an interview for Music & Literature, Peter Sellars commented of Saariaho that: ". . . the music is there to remind you of the power of invisibility and that all of the things that are moving are actually invisible. But Kaija moves them imagistically. And so it takes you into this other world of visual art which is not about things as they appear but their secret existence shimmering in the dark. And that is where Kaija’s music lives."

Jennifer Koh, violin
Curtis 20/21 Ensemble

Jennifer Koh
is recognized for her intense, commanding performances, delivered with dazzling virtuosity and technical assurance. With an impassioned musical curiosity, she is forging an artistic path of her own devising, choosing works that both inspire and challenge. She is dedicated to performing the violin repertoire of all eras from traditional to contemporary, believing that the past and present form a continuum.

The exploration of Bach’s music and its influence in today’s musical landscape has played an important role in Ms. Koh’s artistic journey. She is also passionate in her efforts to expand the violin repertoire and has established relationships with many of today’s composers, regularly commissioning and premiering new works. In 2009 she debuted “Bach and Beyond” a three recital series that explores the history of the solo violin repertoire from Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas to works by modern day composers and new commissions. In 2012, she launched “Two x Four” —a project that pairs Bach’s Double

Violin Concerto with newly commissioned double concerti—with her former teacher from the Curtis Institute of Music, violinist Jaime Laredo. She frequently performs the complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas in a single concert.

Ms. Koh has been heard with leading orchestras around the world including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, and the Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Houston, New World, Montreal, and National Symphonies. Abroad she has appeared with the Czech Philharmonic, BBC London and Scottish Symphonies, Helsinki Philharmonic, Lahti Symphony, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, and Orquestra Sinfonica do Estado de Sao Paulo in Brazil. A prolific recitalist, she frequently appears at major music centers and festivals.

Highlights of her 2013–14 season include “Bach and Beyond” recitals worldwide and “Two x Four” concerts with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. She makes her Munich Philharmonic debut performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto conducted by Lorin Maazel, and performs Barber’s Violin Concerto with the National Symphony Orchestra, Berg’s Violin Concerto with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, and Tchaikovsky’s Concerto with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo. She will perform the role of Einstein in Philip Glass’s Einstein on the Beach in Los Angeles. Her New York concerts include the U.S. premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Frises for violin and electronics and Bach’s Partita No. 2 at Miller Theatre and the New York premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s The Singing Rooms, a concerto for violin and chorus, with the New York Choral Society at Carnegie Hall.

Signs, Games + Messages is Ms. Koh’s eighth recording for Cedille Records. Other albums include Bach & Beyond Part 1, Rhapsodic Musings: 21st Century Works for Solo Violin; the Grammy-nominated String Poetic, featuring the world premiere of Jennifer Higdon’s eponymous work, performed with pianist Reiko Uchida; Schumann’s complete violin sonatas (also with Uchida); Portraits with the Grant Park Orchestra under Carlos Kalmar, featuring concertos by Szymanowski, Martinu, and Bartók; Violin Fantasies: fantasies for violin and piano by Schubert, Schumann, Schoenberg, and saxophonist Ornette Coleman (with Uchida); and her first Cedille album, from 2002, Solo Chaconnes, an earlier reading of Bach’s Second Partita coupled with chaconnes by Richard Barth and Max Reger.

Born in Chicago of Korean parents, Ms. Koh began playing the violin by chance, choosing the instrument in a Suzuki method program only because spaces for cello and piano had been filled. She made her debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at age 11 and went on to win the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Concert Artists Guild Competition, and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Ms. Koh has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature from Oberlin College and studied at the Curtis Institute, where she worked extensively with Jaime Laredo and Felix Galimir.

Booklet for Saariaho x Koh