Aliisa Neige Barrière
© Heli Sorjonen
new narratives
‘Barrière delivered a splendid account of Adámek’s intricate score, keeping the listeners under their spell from start to finish... everybody seemed to be transfixed by the onstage events. One for the books’
Adventures in Music
French–Finnish conductor Aliisa Neige Barrière is one of today’s most exciting and distinctive emerging conductors. She collaborates with respected orchestras and conductors, with a repertoire spanning early to contemporary music, and curates engaging programmes that bring together music and dramaturgy, commissioning new works and highlighting voices that have been overlooked.
Barrière made her debut at the Paris Philharmonie sharing a concert with Esa-Pekka Salonen, Ensemble Intercontemporain and Orchestre de Paris. She conducted Mahler Chamber Orchestra at the Ojai Festival, and has been honoured with the Young Artist Award by the Mikkeli Festival. As Artist-in-Residence at Turku Music Festival in 2024 she curated a series of concerts ranging in scale from chamber music to orchestral music exploring an alternative history in which the voices of women were not silenced.
Current projects include a new production of Kaija Saariaho’s Emilie with Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, at their summer residency in Porvoo, and concerts and recordings with Kuopio Symphony, Bergen Philharmonic and Athelas Sinfonietta.
‘I like the idea that in the process of building a concert programme you’re trying to convey a clear message or tell a story. That means thinking about how the pieces on the programme relate to one another and what story you are telling’
