Agent:
Teemu Markkula / teemu@wejazz.fi / +358 40 763 371
Heli Hartikainen is an award-winning saxophonist, clarinetist, composer, and sound artist whose music merges experimental sonic textures with hypnotic, evolving soundscapes. As a saxophonist, Hartikainen is a passionate instrumentalist who continually pushes the limits of their instrument, themself, and the possibilities of sound technology ever further. Their debut solo album CHRONOVARIATIONS, which utilizes 3D audio technology, won the Finnish Critics’ Association’s honorary prize in 2025 for the year’s most significant artistic breakthrough and was nominated for the Emma Awards, the Finnish equivalent of the Grammys, for Best Jazz Album of 2024.
Interbody (2026) examines time from the perspective of the human body: geological, atmospheric, corporeal, and technological time as embodied experience. At its core is the tenor saxophone, extended through a self-built live sampler that responds in real time to pitch and volume, creating a polyphonic counterpart to the performer. A degree of randomness is built into the system, merging improvisation and algorithmic processes—the human and the machine-organism—and keeping the performer on their toes.