On moving back to Finland, Kyllönen matriculated from the Andra Svenska Lyceum in Helsinki in 1974. He continued studying the accordion at the Espoo Music College since his instrument was not one of those offered by the Sibelius Academy at the time. He was also engaged as accompanist to the Hortto Kaalo gypsy ensemble well known in Finland.
In 1976 Kyllönen was granted a six-year scholarship from the Soviet Union to study the accordion at the Gnesin Institute in Moscow, where he lived without a break until 1986. His teacher was Friedrich Lips, one of the Russian accordion artists best known in the international community. He also studied composition and orchestral conducting. In 1982 he graduated taking his Master of Arts degree from the Gnesin Institute with diplomas in the accordion, orchestral conducting and pedagogics. In that same year the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire granted him a scholarship to continue his composition studies there.
At the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire Kyllönen studied composition, orchestration and counterpoint with composers Aleksei Nikolayev, Juri Fortunatov and Aleksander Chugayev, taking his final examination in composition in spring 1986. In April of that year the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire put on a concert of his works performed by leading Moscow musicians, singers and choirs. This was in fact the first concert arranged entirely for a foreign student by the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire.
In June 1986 the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra under Arnold Katz premiered Kyllönen's first symphony at a concert televised in the Soviet Union. He made his Finnish breakthrough as a composer in summer 1986, when the Helsinki Festival put on a concert of his works in its summer concert series. Since autumn 1986 he has been teaching music theory and chamber music at the Sibelius Academy, and he also has a few composition students. He has also taught music theory at the University of Helsinki, Department of Musicology.
Kyllönen has twice been awarded a three-year artist's grant by the Finnish government, covering the periods 1991–93 and 1996–98.
Although the few large-scale works for orchestra, such as the two symphonies (1985–86 and 1992–93/1997), the Passio secularis (1988–89, text Maritza Núñez) and the children's opera Kuninkaiden kirja (The Book of Kings, 1992–93/1996–97; libretto Maritza Núñez) possibly rank as his main works to date, the core of his output most frequently performed and numbering a good 40 works consists of chamber, choral and vocal music for different combinations. His works for children's choir are especially popular. Kyllönen's style is mainly rooted in the Russian tradition established by Shostakovich and Prokofiev, which he has further developed in a direction all of his own. His works are marked by highly natural, idiomatic writing for his chosen instruments (voice included), the melodic expression often being of focal importance. Some of his works display a fascinating synthesis of a certain melancholy characteristic of the Finns, Slavic temperament and Latin-American zest. Many of his choral and vocal works are settings of texts in Spanish or Finnish translation by his first, Peruvian-born wife, the choir leader, poet and playwright Maritza Núñez or her mother, the writer Carmen Luz Bejarano. His emotional idiom in the great tradition of Western music has also appealed to many non-Finns, as witnessed by the fact that concerts of works by him have been given not only in Finland and Russia but also in France, Sweden, Germany, Ireland and Israel.
Creating music is for Kyllönen above all a form of human communication, of sharing feelings with others and the experience of being fellow humans. As one of his missions he has undertaken to seek out values such as virtue, righteousness and truth in the violent, chaotic world of today. The fundamental essence is thus the emotional aspect of the music, for although the world, its ideals and Zeitgeist are in a constant state of transformation, the human emotions are nevertheless lasting and universal. Composing is for Kyllönen one form of meditation. In his work he stresses the importance of intuition and associations in order to be able to link up different inner worlds, and he wants his works to be mirrors of the interaction between man, nature, and the cosmos. His ultimate aim is to transport, if only for a fleeting moment, the givers (performers) of his music and the receivers (the audience) to the springs of experiencing a sort of higher cosmic energy and 'holiness'.
In trying, through his music, to liberate his listeners from their negative feelings and to bring out the positive energy in them, Kyllönen's works are, at an abstract level, a statement on the eternal battle between good and evil in the world. Music's mission in society is thus to bring together people who think in different ways by allowing them to share the sentiments of their hearts and the common experience of beauty.
© Kalevi Aho (1997)
(translated by © Susan Sinisalo)
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