Kaija Saariaho studied composition under the supervision of Paavo Heininen at the Sibelius Academy, then at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg with Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber, graduating in 1983. In 1982, she took courses in computer-assisted music at IRCAM in Paris, where she settled. Subsequently, the computer has always been an important element of her compositional technique. 

She gained an international reputation with her works Verblendungen (1982-84) and Nymphea (1987) for string quartet and electronic devices, commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet. Saariaho also engaged in a number of multimedia productions, such as the complete ballet Maa (1991) and a pan-European collaborative project to produce a CD-ROM, Prisma, about her life and work. In 1999, Saariaho completed a major work for choir and orchestra titled Oltra mar, which was premiered by the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur on November 11, 1999, as part of their millennium commission series.

These last three projects led Kaija Saariaho to her next major work, her first opera, L’amour de loin, which was jointly commissioned by the Salzburg Festival and the Théâtre du Châtelet, and premiered on August 15, 2000, at the Salzburg Festival. The libretto was written by Franco-Lebanese author Amin Maalouf, the opera was staged by Peter Sellars, and the SWR Baden-Baden Orchestra was conducted by Kent Nagano.

Kaija Saariaho studied composition under the supervision of Paavo Heininen at the Sibelius Academy, then at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg with Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber, graduating in 1983. In 1982, she took courses in computer-assisted music at IRCAM in Paris, where she settled. Subsequently, the computer has always been an important element of her compositional technique. 

She gained an international reputation with her works Verblendungen (1982-84) and Nymphea (1987) for string quartet and electronic devices, commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet. Saariaho also engaged in a number of multimedia productions, such as the complete ballet Maa (1991) and a pan-European collaborative project to produce a CD-ROM, Prisma, about her life and work. In 1999, Saariaho completed a major work for choir and orchestra titled Oltra mar, which was premiered by the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur on November 11, 1999, as part of their millennium commission series.

These last three projects led Kaija Saariaho to her next major work, her first opera, L’amour de loin, which was jointly commissioned by the Salzburg Festival and the Théâtre du Châtelet, and premiered on August 15, 2000, at the Salzburg Festival. The libretto was written by Franco-Lebanese author Amin Maalouf, the opera was staged by Peter Sellars, and the SWR Baden-Baden Orchestra was conducted by Kent Nagano.