Acclaimed composer Kaija Saariaho dies at age 70 of brain tumor

Kaija Saariaho, who wrote acclaimed works that made her the among the most prominent composers of the 21st century, has died. She was 70. Saariaho’s family says in a statement posted on her Facebook page that she died at her apartment in Paris. She had been diagnosed in February 2021 with an aggressive and incurable brain tumor. Her “L’Amour de Loin” premiered at the Salzburg Festival in 2000 and made its U.S. debut at Santa Fe two years later. In 2016, it became the first staged work by a female composer at the Metropolitan Opera since Ethel M. Smyth’s “Der Wald” in 1903.