About

I'm Mikko Sarvanne, multidisciplinary composer and performer based in Helsinki, Finland.

I'll be going to Saari Residency of Kone Foundation for November-December 2025. This is what I think of my artistic practice right now:

Until now, I've always been moving toward something new, and I think I will keep in motion. I'm called by the desire to exist as a whole human being, as a feeling and thinking body that is part of a community. How can we create small moments of wonder in this absolutely terrible state of the world? If ever, now is the time for wonder — and for the will to live.

I've written a lot of scores, and musicians have performed them. Right now, I can't bring myself to engage with musical institutions, nor can I write notation. I think I can't because I feel the weight of the past and the future crushing me into tiny bits of stone — and that's why I want to make music from stones and from the water that flows between them.

I live by the sea. Some days are cloudy, and some days are sunny — and on those sunny days, a 12-FPS strobe animation of the sea is reflected on the walls, making me stop and then dance. The sun reveals something that is always there: the sea is always in the walls, and now the sun shows it.

I want to reveal, from stones and water, something like what the sun reveals on the walls. In the crushed rock live both techno and the harmony of the spheres, and at any moment one could bring them forth — now I thought I would, so join me to listen (whenever the music is out!!).

Let's pause here for a moment. How long is the pause of a little stone?

For November-December 2025 I am working at the Saari Residence, focusing on my solo music. I record and process the sounds of stones and water — and perhaps other sounds too — but at least I begin with the sounds of stones and water. I record both field and studio recordings. My tools also include electronic instruments, especially the modular synthesizer and experimental instruments I have built myself.

If you wish for a general boring bio with career achievements, here you go
(I tried to make it as interesting as I could though):

For composer Mikko Sarvanne, music reveals places: abstract, invisible spaces of harmony, and tangible, physical spaces that are constructed in real time through performance. At the moment he is particularly interested in experimental instrument building, and the embodied agency of performers.

Sarvanne leads the Mikko Sarvanne Garden collective, and his compositions on the group's debut album "Heräämisen valkea myrsky" were awarded the most prestigious composition prize in Finland, Teosto Prize, in spring 2023.

Sarvanne has received commissions from, among others, the Soiva Metsä Festival, Kamarikesä Festival, UMO Helsinki Jazz Orchestra, and the Versoi Ensemble string quartet.

An experimental instrument installation built by Sarvanne, titled "Karhulankordi & Kaksi sointia", is on display at the Mustarinda artist residency house in Hyrynsalmi.

Mikko Sarvanne holds a Master of Music degree from the Sibelius Academy's Jazz Department, with a major in composition and main teachers including Kari Heinilä, Tapani Länsiö, and Antti Auvinen.