Hakola Kimmo Hakola

Kimmo Hannu Tapio Hakola (born July 27, 1958) is a Finnish composer. Born in Jyväskylä, he took private lessons in composition from Einojuhani Rautavaara before enrolling at the Sibelius Academy in 1981. There he studied with Eero Hämeenniemi and Magnus Lindberg. His reputation spread after he was awarded the first prizes at the UNESCO Rostrum of Composers in 1986 (for his String Quartet no.1) and in 1993 (for Capriole). His works have been performed at several European festivals, including Ars Musica, the Edinburgh Festival, the Huddersfield Festival and the ISCM. In the early 1990s he moved from Helsinki to Kesälahti in eastern Finland, where the calm and peaceful atmosphere allowed his highly individual music to develop more fully. He occasionally performs as a pianist and conductor; he was also the artistic director of the Musica Nova Festival, Helsinki, in 1999 and 2000.

Hakola’s works usually attract exceptional interest. He is a creator of intense musical dramas that recognize no stylistic or expressive limits. His music is a combination of exciting dramatic power and exceptional musical quality and musicianship is manifest in all his achievements resulting in communicativeness and richness of sound that speak of the composer's delight at discovering his very own idiom.

Hakola’s meticulously notated music uses advanced compositional techniques and is of a violent and aggressive character, demanding exceptional virtuosity and endurance from its performers. The continuous fury of the sound is on occasion cut off suddenly by periods of quiet meditation that serve to increase further the tension of the music.

Among his best-known works are his Clarinet Concerto, Piano Concerto (1996), Violin Concerto (2012) and Guitar Concerto. Apart from concertos he has written several orchestral works, chamber music and solo pieces for different instruments. He has also composed operas including the cartoon opera Mastersingers of Mars (2000), the family opera Mara and Katti (2011) and the monologue opera Akseli (2012). His opera La Fenice was performed at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in 2012.