Jury

Kalevi Aho studied composition under Einojuhani Rautavaara at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. After completing his diploma in 1971 he continued his studies with Boris Blacher at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Berlin. He lectured in musicology at the University of Helsinki 1974-88 and was Acting Professor of composition at the Sibelius Academy 1988-93. As of autumn 1983 he has been a freelance composer living in Helsinki, since 1994 on a 15-year grant awarded by the Finnish State. Kalevi Aho chaired the Jury of the I International Uuno Klami Composition Competition in 2003-04.

Now one of the best-known Finnish composers in the national and international arena, Kalevi Aho made his breakthrough in the early 1970s. He is an extremely prolific composer, his output including 14 symphonies (1969-2007) and four operas, most recently Insect Life (premiered in 1996), The Book of Secrets (Act 3 of the opera trilogy The Age of Dreams premiered in 2000) and Before We All Have Drowned (premiered in 2001). He has also composed chamber symphonies, concertos and works for solo instruments and made numerous orchestrations and arrangements. Heading the list of works in the last category is his completion of the unfinished ballet Whirls by Uuno Klami. Aho has been awarded many international prizes and distinctions and in 1999 the national Pro Finlandia medal.

Since 1992 Aho has been composer-in-residence of the Lahti Symphony Orchestra. This orchestra and the Chamber Music Society made up of its members are recording his complete works on the BIS label.

Aho has made a name for himself not only as a composer but also as an active writer about music and a columnist. He has published six books, written hundreds of essays, articles and columns and edited the sevenvolume Writings by Finnish Composers I-VII (in Finnish). Chairman of the Association of Finnish Symphony Orchestras (2007), he is one of the most influential figures on the Finnish musical and cultural scene.

Magnus Lindberg is one of the leading musical influences and composers of his generation in Finland today. He studied composition with Einojuhani Rautavaara and Paavo Heininen at the Sibelius Academy, obtaining his diploma in 1981, before continuing with Franco Donatoni, Brian Ferneyhough and others. He worked at the EMS Studio in Stockholm in the 1970s and at IRCAM in Paris in the 1980s. He was also a member of the Jury of the I International Uuno Klami Composition Competition in 2003-04.

Lindberg was one of the founding members of the Korvat Auki! (Ears Open!) society and experimental Toimii ensemble committed to the promotion of new music. He has won a number of prizes both in Finland and abroad, such as the UNESCO Rostrum in 1982 for "...Tartuffe, je crois" and in 1986 for Kraft. He was also the winner of the Nordic Music Prize and the Koussevitzky Prize in 1988, the Prix Italia in 1986 (for Faust), the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize in 1993 (for Joy), and the European Composer Prize (for Cantigas) awarded by the City of Berlin in 2000. Lindberg was awarded the Wihuri Sibelius Prize, one of the world's most notable music prizes, in recognition of his career as a composer in 2003.

Since abandoning the strict adherence to serialism of his early works, Lindberg has created music rich in colour and expression that has been widely performed abroad, such as at the Aldeburgh Festival in 1995, the Ars Musica festival in Brussels and the Strasbourg Musica festival in 1997. Works by him can regularly be heard in London and other world metropolises, and in the United States music by him has been recorded by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting. Among his most recent, highly-acclaimed works are the Clarinet Concerto composed in 2001-02 and Sculpture, premiered in Los Angeles and heard at, for example, the Agora Festival in Paris.

Anders Eliasson studied composition with Ingvar Lidholm, harmony and counterpoint with Valdemar Söderholm at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm 1966-72. This prolific Swedish composer was visiting Professor of composition at the Sibelius Academy in Finland in 1993 and 1994.

Eliasson's broad output of over 100 works ranges from vocal and chamber music to such large-scale opuses as symphonies, solo concertos and oratorios. Among his most recent works are the Dante Anarca oratorio (1998), the Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra (2005) premiered in Helsinki in 2006, the Symphony no. 4 (2005, premiered in Munich in 2007), Ein schneller Blick...ein kurzes Aufscheinen (2003) for string orchestra (2003) and the chamber work Pentagramm (2003).

In the course of his career Eliasson has earned well-deserved acclaim and numerous prizes, such as the Nordic Council Music Prize (1992) and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music's Medal for the Promotion of the Art of Music (2006). The salient feature of his compositions is their intensity, created by means of sharp nuances and contrasts. His style is also marked by his careful assembly of musical constructions in which complexity combines with easily-accessible moods. Despite their contrasting rhythms and changes of key, his works never lose control of their musical forms.

Yasuo Shinozaki was born and began his conducting studies in Japan. He then continued with Leopold Hager at the Vienna Music Academy, with Myung-Whun Chung at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena and Seiji Ozawa and Bernard Haitink at Tanglewood.

In 2000 Yasuo Shinozaki took the second prize in the Second International Sibelius Conducting Competition, conducting a memorable, emotional performance of Sibelius's Symphony no. 2. He immediately received invitations from the Helsinki and Turku Philharmonic orchestras. At the beginning of 2007 he took up his position as Artistic Director of the Kymi Sinfonietta. Here in Finland he has also worked with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tampere Philharmonic and the Tapiola Sinfonietta.

As Assistant Conductor to Esa-Pekka Salonen at the Los Angeles Philharmonic between August 2001 and September 2004 Shinozaki conducted more that 40 concerts. In addition to subscription concerts at the new Walt Disney Concert Hall, he conducted the orchestra on regional tours, at the Hollywood Bowl and elsewhere. He also performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group.

In his native Japan Shinozaki, who now lives in the UK, has worked with such orchestras as the Tokyo Philharmonic and the New Japan Philharmonic and conducted at the Tokyo Nikikai Opera and Japan National Opera, where he made his operatic debut with Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. In the UK he has collaborated with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic. Forthcoming engagements will take him to Latvia, Belgrade, Galicia, Västerås and Nuremberg.