Outi Tarkiainen is a Rovaniemi-born composer, whose works have earned well-deserved admiration around the world. Her works have been commissioned and performed by the BBC Philharmonic and the Radio Symphony Orchestra. Tarkiainen’s work includes stage performances, orchestral and chamber music, and music for soloists and jazz orchestras. In 2019, her work Midnight Sun Variations premiered at the BBC Proms Festival and her opera A Room of One’s Own premiered in Germany in May this year. Her commissioned composition Tenderness, composed for the International Maj Lind Piano Competition, is, according to the composer, a musical study on tenderness.
“No matter how obscure, intangible and fleeting, the power of tenderness sustains all humanity. We all need tenderness. The work alternates between various jingling and gossamer textures that gradually converge into timbral clouds, eventually dispersing into a rustic hymn. I composed the piece holding my baby boy in my arms”, Tarkiainen says.
Tarkiainen graduated with a Master of Music degree from Sibelius Academy in 2010, after which she continued her studies at the Guildhall School of Music in London and the University of Miami.
