OLLI MOILANEN – Composer

“When music resonates in me it feels as if the laws of everyday reality are switched to others, and time ceases to exist.”

Olli Moilanen (b.1987) is a Finnish composer based in Helsinki. His music unfolds as the movement of imaginary objects—shapes, forces, and even beings—through time and space. He explores structures, into which he plants gestures and harmonies that grow into living entities. Balancing rigorous architecture with artistic freedom, his work embraces sensitivity, curiousity, and playful imagination.

RECENT WORKS

Trapeze

for bass flute/flute, violin, viola, cello and piano 15’30”
commissioned by Uusinta Ensemble
commission was kindly supported by the Sibelius Fund of the Society of Finnish Composers
composition work was kindly supported by Finnish Cultural Foundation Uusimaa Regional Fund

“A pendulum ticks in the wind. Every now and then it is being pushed by low currents of the bass flute. Layers of time move pushed and drawn by their own causalities. Trapeze is dedicated to the memory of Kaija Saariaho.”

Paralysis

audioscore for flute, bass clarinet, piano, cello and tape, 7′
performed by defunensemble

“Paralysis is a composition about pressure, urge and resistance. The material is based on my own voice that I recorded very close with a mic. In this way I caught tiny micro-sounds of my voice that are otherwise inaudible. The music undulates between inhalation and exhalation that meet severe resistance from the body and mind.

Instead of a written score, the performers learn the piece by ear. They use an audioscore, which is an electronic track of my manipulated voice. They listen to it from their headphones and mimic it with their instruments.”

Liekki

for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and cello, 10′
performed by American Modern Ensemble
originally commissioned by Jussi Järvenpää for Jyväskylä Symphony wind quintet
commission was kindly supported by Teosto Fund

“Liekki is Finnish and means flame. Italo Calvino’s ideas about lightness in art influenced me deeply. His book Six Memos for the Next Millennium made me rethink my musical expression: I wanted my Quintet to sound light, and embody air-like gestures. As my compositional process advanced something in the music felt like friction and heat. As I neared the end of the composition, it reminded me of a fluttering flame, that seemed sculpted by air currents whirling around it.”

Amfisbaina

for clarinet, soprano saxophone and cello, 13’30”
commissioned by AEKI-ensemble
commission was kindly supported by Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation

“Amfisbaina is a two-headed mythical snake I encountered in Jorge Louis Borges’s Book of Imaginary Beings. The composition behaves like this snake: the clarinet and sax are its vigilant heads, and the cello the slithering body. The snake is also an ambivalent symbol: on the other hand a venom and on the other hand a remedy.”

I never saw…

for choir SSAA div., 8′
commissioned and performed by Vox Aurea

“I never saw… is a set in Sonnet 83 by William Shakespeare. Two rival poets attempt to describe the beauty of youth. Ultimately, they conclude that there are no words to capture it. I wrote music where each of the 50 singers’ individual voices creates flocks of sound. Everything moves and reforms like clouds.”