Tero Saarinen’s Study for Life will receive its world premiere at Holland Festival on June 24 and 25 2025, followed by performances at Bregenzer Festspiele on July 30 and 31.
The new creation delves into the music of Kaija Saariaho. In Study for Life, a group of six dancers of Tero Saarinen Company, nine musicians of Asko|Schönberg ensemble, soprano Raquel Camarinha, and innovative electronic sound design that interweaves Saariaho’s compositions, bring her nuanced and delicate world to life. This work confronts the contemporary human desire to be moved and envelops the spectator in a powerful sensory experience.
“We had been planning a collaborative work with Kaija Saariaho for years. In spring 2023, at Kaija’s request, it was decided that the musical arc of the piece would be built around her first stage work Study for Life. The early work is based on T.S. Eliot’s poem The Hollow Men (1925), which, with its multifaceted anti-war themes, remains profoundly relevant even a hundred years after its publication.” –Tero Saarinen
With a dystopian and lonely landscape as its starting point, this multi-artistic work seeks to achieve a holistic synaesthesia – a richer range of emotions – through intense physicality and music that stretches sensitivity. Both musicians and dancers move within the performance space, blurring the boundaries between stage and audience.
The production includes four of Saariaho’s works Study for Life (Dutch premiere), Petals, Lichtbogen and Quatre Instants (excerpts). Study for Life is a collaboration with Amsterdam-based Asko|Schönberg ensemble. The sound design is by Tuomas Norvio, the scenography by Fabiana Piccioli, Sander Loonen, and costume designer Erika Turunen.
