Sauli Zinovjev

A composition at its best has everything. The entire life in a single moment. This is how composer Sauli Zinovjev (1988) sees it. Since graduating from the Sibelius-Academy he has been focusing mainly on orchestral music with commissions and performances by distinguished orchestras such as the Finnish and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestras, Orchestra de Chambre de Lausanne and most important Finnish orchestras in collaboration with some of the frontline conductors and soloists such as Klaus Mäkelä and Pekka Kuusisto. At the moment Zinovjev is composing a Piano Concerto for pianist Vikingur Olafsson commissioned by Finnish and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestras to be premiered in 2020. Zinovjev composes music that conveys vast emotions. The kind of music which also made him a composer. Until the age of sixteen, he played the guitar in a rock band and skateboarded. Then he saw a clip online with György Cziffra performing Liszt. “It was as if wallpaper had been torn off the wall revealing a window to an open landscape. The euphoria and the virtuoso performance left a fanatic impression on me. To have the ability to inject so much art into a single moment. The entire spectrum of life.” Zinovjev uses classical music to make his view of the world intelligible. To convey it – life – to others. Anna-Kaari Hakkarainen