IRO HAARLA
Genres: Post-Fusion Contemporary, 21st Century Modern, Third Stream, Eclectic Fusion, Avant-Garde Jazz • Finland

Iro Haarla was for many years the inner architect and orchestrator of the music of her husband, drummer and bandleader Edward Vesala (1954-1999). She had just left Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy when she met Vesala in 1978 and put her own career as a composer and concert pianist on hold to help him realize his musical visions. Vesala was very much an intuitive musician, and it was Haarla who gave shape and colour to many of his ideas in her arrangements and editing of material for his Sound & Fury group. Like all his players, she was devoted to the cause. Edward needed an improvising harpist? Iro promptly learned how to play the harp. (And, later koto, analog synthesizers, accordion, whatever was required). Vesala’s influence on her work and her musical values was profound and continues, but she gave much to his work, too – as can be adjudged by listening read more...