French-Finnish Conductor Aliisa Neige Barrière Signs with MaestroArts

Barrière, who studied conducting with Jorma Panula and Sakari Oramo, recently made debuts at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Ojai Festival

The London-based arts management company MaestroArts has announced that the French-Finnish conductor Aliisa Neige Barrière has joined their roster, and will receive general management. A violinist as well as a conductor, Barrière is also the daughter of the late composer Kaija Saariaho.

Born in Paris, Barrière studied the violin at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional, the Mannes College of Music, and the Norwegian Academy of Music, where she received a master's degree and also won the school's concerto competition.

She then received conducting mentoring from the noted Finnish teacher Jorma Panula and has spent time as the assistant to Esa-Pekka Salonen, Simone Young, Susanna Mälkki, Sakari Oramo, Pekka Kuusisto and Ernest Martínez-Izquierdo, at the Aix en Provence Opera Festival, Orchestre de Paris, Wiener Staatsoper, San Francisco Symphony, and the Helsinki Philharmonic.

Barrière received a master's degree in conducting from the Sibelius Academy, where she studied with Sakari Oramo.

She has recently made debuts at the Paris Philharmonie (where she shared a concert with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the combined forces of Ensemble Intercontemporain and the Orchestre de Paris), and at the Ojai Festival (leading the Mahler Chamber Orchestra). 

"If you had asked my parents, they would have said that in a way, I was always a conductor, because they felt I reacted so strongly to any type of music or rhythm, and I clearly had a need to experience that physically, too," Barrière said of her journey to conducting.

"Maybe the person I have worked with the most at this point, and with whom I always love working, is Esa-Pekka Salonen. He has given me a lot of trust and many special opportunities, which is not something to take for granted. Of course, Sakari Oramo, my former teacher from the Sibelius Academy, was a great mentor. It was so inspiring to have a professor who is both so grounded and natural but also has a deep love for music."