Published on 6th November 2025

On November 6 Outi Tarkiainen was awarded the Alfred Kordelin Prize for briging Finnish musical art on the international stage.

The € 50,000 Alfred Kordelin Prize is one of the most significant annual awards presented in Finland. The prizes are awarded for socially impactful and topical contributions to science, the arts and public education. The recipients are at the top of their field and contribute to the diversity, skilfulness and internationality of Finnish society through their work.

The Alfred Kordelin Prize has been awarded for over a hundred years. The very first prize was awarded to composer Jean Sibelius in 1923. Among the previous recipients are the former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, conductor Dalia Stasevska and opera singer Jorma Hynninen. Last time a composer received the award, was Eero Hämeenniemi in 1990, Tarkiainen's former composition teacher. 

Mikko Kosonen, Chair of the foundation states:

In order to build a sustainable and better future, we need top-level science, high-quality art as well as carefully considered perspectives, thinking and discussion that help maintain society. This year’s award recipients all share a distinct topicality and success in international arenas.

Link to the original news article

Published on February 5, 2025

Outi Tarkiainen is composing her second opera, Day of Night (in Finnish Yön päivä), based on the critically-acclaimed debut novel Halla Helle by Niillas Holmberg on a Sámi theme. The libretto is by Aleksi Barrière. The opera is a joint commission and production by the Aalto Theatre Essen, Germany and the Finnish National Opera. The world premiere is scheduled for January 2027 in Essen and the Finnish premiere will follow in October of the same year. The opera will last about two hours and be sung in Finnish, North Sámi, South Sámi, English, German and Norwegian.

Published on Feburary 5, 2025

The Berlin Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra together commissioned an orchestral work, Day Night Day (2024), from Outi Tarkiainen. The world premiere, under US conductor Marin Alsop, is scheduled for February 20 -22, 2025 at the Philharmonie Berlin.

The work incorporates references to two Sámi melodies: a yoik of Láve Nigá Risten from the Teno region of Northern Finnish Lapland heralded by muted trumpets towards the beginning, and a variation of the old South Sámi lullaby Sjamma, sjamma hummed at the end by the woodwinds. The musical themes spring from the forthcoming opera Day of Night jointly commissioned by the Aalto Music Theatre Essen and the Finnish National Opera. The libretto of this opera based on the novel Halla Helle by the Sámi writer Niillas Holmberg is by Aleksi Barrière.

Published on February 2, 2024

The new Ondine Records disc features four orchestral works by Outi Tarkiainen – Midnight Sun Variations (2019), Milky Ways (2022), Songs of the Ice (2019) and The Ring of Fire and Love (2020). The oboe soloist is Nicholas Daniel, and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Nicholas Collon.

The concerto for cor anglais, Milky Ways, is carried along by the hypnotic sound of the solo instrument, characterising the milky way of both newborn babe and mother, and also the premature end of life. The glowing colours of The Ring of Fire and Love and Midnight Sun Variations nominated, respectively, for the Musical Composition Prize of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco in 2024 and 2021, are as bright as those of the arctic summer, in stark contrast to Songs of the Ice with its harsh orchestral textures.

Nicholas Daniel has long been acknowledged as one of the world’s great oboists and is one of Britain’s best-known musicians. The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (FRSO), founded in 1927, is the orchestra of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (Yle), and its mission is to produce and promote Finnish musical culture. Orchestra’s Chief Conductor is Nicholas Collon.

Published on September 11, 2023

Outi Tarkiainen’s orchestral The Ring of Fire and Love (2020) has been nominated for the 2024 Music Composition Prize of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco. The nominees were chosen by an international Musical Council made up of leading contemporary composers and chaired by British composer Julian Anderson.

Awarded once every three years to a recent work by a living composer, the Music Composition Prize of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco was established in 1960. Competing for the 2024 prize are 33 composers from different parts of the world, among them Tristan Murail, Kaija Saariaho, Enno Poppe and Anna Thorvaldsdottir. The winner of the prize worth €75,000 will be announced in autumn 2024.

The Ring of Fire and Love was commissioned by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Jyväskylä and Kymi Sinfonias and was given its world premiere performance by Sakari Oramo in Stockholm in 2021. The work received excellent reviews in the Swedish Press.

Published on June 15, 2022

Outi Tarkiainen’s debut opera A Room of One’s Own is to have its Finnish premiere at the Savonlinna Opera Festival on July 26–28, 2023. The Theater Hagen that gave the opera its world premiere in Hagen, Germany in May 2022 is to be the visiting opera house at next summer’s Savonlinna festival. It will be bringing along the soloists, choir, ballet and orchestra.

Based on the classic essay of the same name by Virginia Woolf (1929), the opera has a libretto by German opera director, dramaturge and librettist Francis Hüsers. The stage director of the premiere was Austrian Magdalena Fuchsberger. The opera, sung in English, is in three acts performed without a break and was commissioned by the German Theater Hagen. At Savonlinna, it will be paired with Bartók’s one-act Bluebeard’s Castle.