The second winner of the contest for the General Pause is

 

Miika Hyytiäinen

 

 

...as a storyteller that uses sounds and movement:

I started working with music theatre rather early. I have used my brother as a props in my pieces when I wasn't much older than three. Already then it was quite natural for me to express myself in the many fields of music theatre and this feature has been important part of my professional personality also. I communicate with different kinds of people and create with my music and performative ideas new collaborations. In these little moments the performers and viewers find new levels and intensities of communications. My experiments of colliding different worlds don't end where the contemporary music ends (if there even is such a place). I have a degree in Mathematics and also studies in musicology, aesthetics and literature as well as in composition, so the roots of my ideas tend to get really deep. I don't mind at all using the material of other composers, especially enjoying Baroque music and the music of second Viennese school, but sometimes the composer isn't needed at all. The composer is just a person who decides some of the rules, but the actual play is played by the other people.

 

...as composer of experimental music theatre:

Miika Hyytiäinen's music has been performed in most of the festivals and other important positions in Finland and Germany. It has also been heard in all Nordic countries, France, Japan, The Netherlands and England.

The versatile use of human voice and intimacy of the sound is typical for his music that combines different kinds of art forms, such as instrumental theatre, performance and theatre. Hyytiäinen graduated from Universität der Künste Berlin, where he studied composition and experimental music theatre with Daniel Ott. In 2014 he won with his piece ”You Are Here” the ”Opera and the Media of the Future” competition organized by Glyndebourne Opera House and the University of Sussex. The same year his (3D) opera "Aikainen" was performed in Berlin and at the Grimeborn Festival in London.

His chamber opera “Figure de la Terre” was premiered in April 2013 at Sophiensæle Berlin. His experimental music theatre piece ”Pierrot Lunaire und drei Schattenträume” has been performed in twoseasons in Finland with positive reviews and was also part of Tokyo Wonder Site Experimental Festival vol 8 in 2013. His opera “Omnivore” for mobile phones had its international premiere in June 2012 in collaboration with Finnish National Opera. Hyytiäinen has also numerous chamber music pieces. One of the most notable works is “Makabere Geschichten” that is at the moment repertoire of four trios in three countries. For 2016 he was chosen to Darmstadt Summer Academy for workshop “Music in the Expanded Field”. Since 2014 Hyytiäinen is working in Sibelius-Academy on Artistic PhD about collaboration of composers and singers. He works in International Biennale Platform of Munich as a composer.