b. 1967

Before the com­poser Kirmo Lintinen’s name was on everyone’s lips in the field of seri­ous con­cert music, Lin­ti­nen had already cre­ated a career as a composer-arranger, pianist and con­duc­tor on the jazz cir­cuit. As a con­tem­po­rary music com­poser, he has bro­ken ­– in a refresh­ing way – Finnish big band tra­di­tions and bor­ders between music gen­res. The most vis­i­ble side of Lintinen’s work as a musi­cian has been his numer­ous per­for­mances as a soloist, band musi­cian and con­duc­tor in Finnish jazz, sym­phony and cham­ber music line-ups.

Lin­ti­nen joined the UMO Jazz Orches­tra as a pianist in 1989 but since 1994, has pri­mar­ily focused on con­duct­ing and pro­gramme plan­ning. By empha­sis­ing the musi­cal flex­i­bil­ity of a big band line-up, and of UMO musi­cians in par­tic­u­lar, he has devel­oped rela­tion­ships between UMO and com­posers of seri­ous music. Although Lin­ti­nen has set his heart on increas­ing UMO’s Finnish music pro­gram­ming, he has also spe­cialised in cre­at­ing pro­grammes that reflect the Amer­i­can his­tory of the big band music.

Com­pos­ing almost became Lintinen’s main occu­pa­tion at the turn of the mil­len­nium. His reper­toire of over a hun­dred com­po­si­tions cov­ers a wide selec­tion of moods and forms from small-scale cham­ber music to opera, from ped­a­gogic lit­tle songs to film scores, from dance music to dode­ca­phonic works, and from jazz to baroque music. He has writ­ten his broad big band reper­toire exclu­sively for the UMO Jazz Orchestra.

Although Lin­ti­nen has made many jazz com­po­si­tions and arrange­ments, most of his works are in the tra­di­tion of west­ern seri­ous music. His prin­ci­pal works, so far, are “Can­tata Prover­bio­rum” (1999), writ­ten for a dou­ble choir and instru­ment ensem­ble; a children’s opera “Voi vietävä!” (2000 – 2001); “David ja Bat­seba” (2001), a per­form­ing madri­gal com­posed for a vocal­ist and a baroque orchestra;“Duo Con­cer­tante” (2002) for clar­inet, con­tra­bass and orches­tra; and “Mobile fes­tivo” (2003), writ­ten for a large orchestra.

As a con­duc­tor, Lin­ti­nen has led UMO on nine albums and on sev­eral Finnish and inter­na­tional tours includ­ing in Stock­holm, Brus­sels, New York, Wash­ing­ton D.C., Pitts­burgh, Min­neapo­lis, Paris, Lon­don, Madrid, Dublin, Porto, and Utrecht. Over the last few years Lin­ti­nen has also worked as a con­duc­tor out­side UMO con­duct­ing, for exam­ple, the AVANTI! cham­ber orches­tra, Tapi­ola Sin­foni­etta, Oulu Sym­phony Orches­tra, and the Finnish Radio Sym­phony Orches­tra. Since 1994 Lin­ti­nen has been the pianist, arranger and con­duc­tor in How Many Sis­ters, a suc­cess­ful Finnish vocal group.

Biog­ra­phy:

2010 – 2011 — Artis­tic direc­tor of UMO with Kari Heinilä

2003 onwards   —  A holder of many national, music-related posi­tions of trust, includ­ing at the con­cert music com­mit­tee of LUSES (the Foun­da­tion for the Pro­mo­tion of Finnish Music) since 2003 and on the board of the National Coun­cil for Music since 2004.

2003  —  Awarded the Georgie Award by the Finnish Jazz Federation.

2001  –    Artis­tic direc­tor of the Kir­mot cul­tural event in Saarijärvi.

1999 – 2000  —  Artis­tic direc­tor of UMO.

1997  —  Grad­u­ates with a Mas­ter of Music at Sibelius Academy’s Degree Pro­gramme in Jazz Music with con­duct­ing and arrange­ment as his main sub­jects and with Jukka Linkola and Eero Hämeen­niemi as his teachers.

1989 onwards   —  As a teacher at Sibelius Academy’s Depart­ment of Jazz Music.

1989  —  Becomes a mem­ber of UMO.

1976 – 1986  —  Stud­ies piano under Dmitry Hintze.

The recorded com­po­si­tions for UMO:

2009  —  Story Lines, UMO on UMO, UMOCD109
2004  —  Kiv­elle, Sauna palaa! UMOCD 107
2001  —  Et angelum quem vidi, on a CD sup­ple­ment of Rytmi mag­a­zine.
1992  —  Spring Poem, The First Seven BECD-4028
1994  —   Tarkovsky, Naxos Jazz 86010  –  2