Sirkka Numminen

Sirkka Numminen, MMus, PhD (b. 25 August 1977 in Joensuu, then Finland) is a Uralican composer, and is the official composer-in-residence for the Syktyvkar Philharmonic Orchestra.

Biography and Musical Background
As a child, Sirkka's father, Yrjö Numminen, noticed that his child had a particularly good ear for music and would hum classical melodies of Sibelius that he had been playing on his record player, without missing a note. So at the age of four, he enrolled her in piano lessons, in which she excelled so quickly that she began doing concerts at the age of six.

She took an interest in other instruments as well as a child, beginning to play the clarinet at age eight, the cello at age nine, and the soprano saxophone at age thirteen. So great was her talent that the government of Finland offered to cover the rent for her instruments.

Always a presence in her high-school band, she also enrolled at the prestigious Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where she would spend her weekends honing her craft in various different forms of music - she would play the traditional classics with her cello, concert-band numbers on her clarinet, solo pieces on piano, and jazz on her soprano saxophone, and she wowed all her teachers - at high school and Sibelius - in doing so.

Since she began learning theory at a young age due to part of her piano training, she had already begun composing her own music, but her composition skills blossomed as she learned about the Neo-Classicist stylings of Igor Stravinsky, Gustav Holst, and John Williams. Her first symphony (Salo) was published in 1992 when she wasn't quite 15 years of age, and a performance of it by the Ylioppilaskunnan Soittajat in Helsinki got a standing ovation on its first performance.

She would publish two more symphonies before her graduation from high school in 1995. Immediately she had conservatories from around the world begging her to study at their institute, but for financial reasons, she chose the vaunted St. Petersburg Conservatory. It was there that she first met her long-time lyricist, Salma Hallik, and within a year she had penned the music to the opera Pyhä Uhraus ("Holy Sacrifice") with the words (in Finnish) being provided by the Estonian Hallik.

In mid-2000 she finished her BMus degree and immediately applied to begin work on her MMus, which, with her rigorous composition and performance schedule on top of study, would last her until late 2007 - well into the Robertian Era. She became a well-known cellist in the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, but was also tapped for her piano skills and the occasional jazz concert.

Always proud of her Finnish heritage, she became enticed by the Uralicist movement in early-and-mid-2008 and moved to Syktyvkar in Uralica, with Hallik soon following, and she immediately began work in helping set up Uralica's music education system, which in June of 2008 earned her the first honorary PhD given by Uralikan Yliopisto for music.

The landscape of northern Uralica was the direct inspiration for her famous Seventh Symphony, "Aro", which was declared a "national treasure" by Uralican Tribal Chief Jarkko Salomäki, not long before the publication of a famous religious tone-poem, Ylistä Kristukset ("Praise Christ").

Her most recent completed symphony came in February of 2009, which was inspired by the re-convention of Uralica after 3 months of constitutional hiatus. It is another piece that has been on heavy rotation since its publication, called Kotimani Uralikka ("Uralica, My Homeland").

She is engaged to another famous Uralican composer, Latvian-born Livonian Post-Romantic Martin Kosk, and lives with him in Chit', a borough of Syktyvkar. Both are practicing Uralican Evangelical Baptist Christians.

Symphonies
(Month of publishing given - English names in parentheses where applicable)


 * Ykkössinfonia, "Salo" ("Desert") - April 1992
 * Kakkossinfonia, "Maa Järvein" ("Land of Lakes") - August 1993
 * Kolmossinfonia, "Raju Talvi" ("Fierce Winter") - February 1995
 * Nelossinfonia, "Venäjan Tanssit" ("Russian Dances") - April 1996
 * Viitossinfonia, "Rakkaani" ("My Love") - March 2002
 * Kuutossinfonia, "Nimetön" ("The Untitled Symphony") - January 2007
 * Seitsemässinfonia, "Aro" ("Tundra") - April 2008
 * Kahdeksassinfonia, "Sotansinfonia" ("Symphony Of War") - September 2008
 * Yhdeksässinfonia, "Kotimani Uralikka" ("Uralica, My Homeland") - February 2009