Grandparents killed in wrong-way crash on Hwy. 401 identified
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Kaija Saariaho, who wrote acclaimed works that made her the among the most prominent composers of the 21st century, died Friday. She was 70.
Saariaho died at her apartment in Paris, her family said in a statement posted on her Facebook page. She had been diagnosed in February 2021 with glioblastoma, an aggressive and incurable brain tumor.
"The multiplying tumors did not affect her cognitive facilities until the terminal phase of her illness," the statement said. Her family said Saariaho had undergone experimental treatment at Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital in Paris.
"Kaija's appearance in a wheelchair or walking with a cane have prompted many questions, to which she answered elusively," the family said. "Following her physician's advice, she kept her illness a private matter, in order to maintain a positive mindset and keep the focus of her work."
Her "L'Amour de Loin (Love from Afar)" premiered at the Salzburg Festival in 2000 and made its U.S. debut at the Santa Fe Opera 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.
"She was one of the most original voices and enjoyed enormous success," Met general manager Peter Gelb said. "It had impact on one's intellect as well as one's emotions. It was music that really moves people's hearts. She was truly one of the great, great artists."
Saariaho did not like to be thought of as a female composer, rather a woman who was a composer.
"I would not even like to speak about it," she said during an interview with The Associated Press after a piano rehearsal at the Met. "It should be a shame."
Born in Helsinki on Oct. 14, 1952, Saariaho studied at the Sibelius Academy and the Hochschule fur Musik Freiburg. She helped found a Finnish group "Korvat auki (Ears Open) in the 1970s.
"The problem in Finland in the 1970s and '80s was that it was very closed," she told NPR last year. "My generation felt that there was no place for us and no interest in our music -- and more generally, modern music was heard much less."
Saariaho started work in 1982 at Paris' Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM), a center of contemporary music founded in the 1970s by Pierre Boulez. She incorporated electronics in her composition.
"I am interested in spatialization, but under the condition that it's not applied gratuitously," she said in a 2014 conversation posted on her website. "It has to be necessary -- in the same way that material and form must be linked together organically.
Inspired by viewing Messiaen's ″St. Francois d'Assise" at the 1992 Salzburg Festival, she wrote "L'Amour de Loin." She went on to compose "Adriana Mater," which premiered at the Opera Bastille in 2006 and "Emilie," which debuted at the Lyon Opera in 2010.
Her latest opera, "Innocence," was first seen at the 2021 Aix-en-Provence Festival. Putting a spotlight on gun violence, the work was staged in London this spring and is scheduled for the Met's 2025-26 season.
"This is undoubtedly the work of a mature master, in such full command of her resources that she can focus simply on telling a story and illuminating characters," Zachary Woolfe wrote in The New York Times.
Saariaho received the University of Louisville's Grawemeyer Award in 2003 and was selected Musical America's Musician of the Year in 2008. Kent Nagano's recording of "L'Amour de Loin" won a 2011 Grammy Award.
Saariaho's final work, a trumpet concerto titled "HUSH," is to premiere in Helsinki in Aug. 24 with Susanna Mälkki leading the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
The announcement of Saariaho's death was posted by her husband, composer Jean-Baptiste Barriere; son Aleksi Barriere, a writer; and daughter Aliisa Neige Barriere, a conductor and violinist.
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Three people have been arrested and charged in the killing of B.C. Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar – as authorities continue investigating potential connections to the Indian government.
Pius Suter scored with 1:39 left and the Vancouver Canucks advanced to the second round of the NHL playoffs with a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night in Game 6.
TD Bank Group could be hit with more severe penalties than previously expected, says a banking analyst after a report that the investigation it faces in the U.S. is tied to laundering illicit fentanyl profits.
A Quebec man who pleaded guilty to threatening Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Premier François Legault has been sentenced to 20 months in jail.
RCMP say human remains found in a rural area in central Saskatchewan may have been there for a decade or more.
A source close to singer Britney Spears tells CNN that the pop star is 'home and safe' after she had a 'major fight' with her boyfriend on Wednesday night at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood.
As Wegovy becomes available to Canadians starting Monday, a medical expert is cautioning patients wanting to use the drug to lose weight that no medication is a ''magic bullet,' and the new medication is meant particularly for people who meet certain criteria related to obesity and weight.
Drew Carey took over as host of 'The Price Is Right' and hopes he’s there for life. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he told 'Entertainment Tonight' of the job he took over from longtime host Bob Barker in 2007.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.