Jarmo Herkman
*28 August 1964
Works by Jarmo Herkman
Biography
Jarmo Herkman was born in a small city near Helsinki, the capital of Finland, in 1964. He studied musicology, literature, aesthetics and psychology at the University of Helsinki, piano playing and piano pedagogy at the conservatories in Helsinki and in Turku and music theory and composing with leading teachers at the Sibelius Academy. Besides music, he has worked as a psychologist and a psychotherapist and published poems. He has taught piano playing, music theory and history of music. He is a versatile pianist and performs both classical and other genres as a solo player as well as a chamber musician. He has made numerous arrangements in many genres for concert performances. As a composer, he likes to compose also in other genres in addition to classical music. His compositions have been performed in Finland, his native country, and abroad.
About the music
As a composer, I am an eclectic. I like to make music in different styles. In addition to contemporary classical, I compose alternative pop, rock and jazz, as well as tangos. However, I want my music to be clear in style, not a stylistic mishmash. That is why my classical and non-classical compositions are quite different. My classical style is clearly recognizable. It is atonal or free-tonal with some postmodern elements and extended techniques, but it is nearer the new simplicity than the new complexity. The atmosphere in my pieces is often melancholic and slow. Nevertheless, I like surprises and humour, for example using finger snaps in the piece Groove. I am very interested in the history of music and study music exhaustively. My influence and inspiration comes from various sources and genres, such as Kurtag, Ligeti and Björk. It is typical to me that some musical ideas and fragments emerge first, and then based on this material, I get a name for the piece. Then the name gathers th