Hochschule für Musik Freiburg
Saariaho was born in Helsinki, Finland. She studied at the Sibelius Academy under Paavo Heininen. After attending the Darmstadt Summer Courses, she moved to Germany to study at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg under Brian Ferneyhough and Klaus Huber. She found her teachers' emphasis on strict serialism and mathematical structures stifling, saying in an interview: