Biography
Finnish pianist, harpist, and composer Iro Haarla trained classically yet gravitated toward atmospheric modern creative and chamber-style jazz. Born in 1956, she pursued piano and composition studies at Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy and appeared destined for a concert-pianist path until her 1978 encounter with drummer and bandleader Edward Vesala. She suspended her solo ambitions to begin both a personal and artistic relationship with Vesala, whom she later married. Over the next twenty years she worked closely with her husband, shaping and arranging his material, most notably within his Sound & Fury ensemble, and participated in several ECM recordings with the group. In the same period she acquired fluency on harp, koto, accordion, and analog synthesizers. Following Vesala’s death from heart failure in 1999, Haarla launched an independent career, issuing the album Penguin Beguine on Tum Records in 2005. The following year she presented the ECM quintet date Northbound with trumpeter Mathias Eick, saxophonist Trygve Seim, bassist Ulf Krokfors, and drummer Jon Christensen. In 2010 she joined Krokfors and saxophonist Rasmus Korsstrom for the trio album Heart of a Bird. She revisited the ECM quintet format in 2011 with the recording Vespers.
Albums
