Eero Hämeenniemi considers Italy his third home. Although his base is in Kerava, Finland, the Finnish composer and writer has been constantly on the move, and Italy and India have been important destinations.
“I like my work. I am one of those people who does not know when he is working and when he is on free time. But I am basically always thinking about things and pretty much always writing words, and very often also composing music. Even here I have been composing for a few hours.’’
Eero started his musical journey officially at the Sibelius Academy in the 1970s. The school, now one of the largest musical schools in Europe, was back then a small private university with some of the most prominent musicians. After the studies in Helsinki, Eero studied abroad both in Krakow, Rochester, NY, and he took part in a famous summer course in Siena, together with Esa-Pekka Salonen, Kaija Saariaho and his wife Leena. From the summer in Siena, he cherishes a lot of fond memories. Such as when he and his friend Magnus Lindberg invented a composer to compete in a competition. Luckily, they received the third prize and not the first, as it would have been too embarrassing to reveal that the composer, Juhani Pursianen, in reality consisted of two people drinking and composing together.
For Eero, classical piano has never interested him. He has instead been drawn to music where he can be free and improvise, such as jazz. One of his earlier inspirations was the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. In Eero’s hometown, Valkeakoski, he would go to the library to listen to Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge, to the librarian’s chagrin. One day, Stockhausen published an ‘Open letter to the youth from the world ‘. He also gave his address, so young people could write letters to him. Eero wrote immediately — and did get a response — a letter that is still lying on his desk in Kerava. In the letter, Stockhausen told him to read the book ‘The Life Divine’ by Sri Aurobindo; a 1500-page book in Victorian English that explores the evolution of consciousness. Eero managed to borrow the book from Åbo Academy for three weeks and told his mother that he had to stay home from school so he could finish the book. After all, Stockhausen had told him to do so.
“Then I stayed in bed for three weeks and read the book. I do not know how much I understood, probably not very much, but the experience inspired me to go to the university to study theoretical philosophy, musicology and Sanskrit. So I took Sanskrit at that time, and it somehow started from there. ’’
The book and Sanskrit sparked an interest in India, and Eero went to Delhi to experience the country in person. He discovered that everything he liked — the food, the music, the dance — came from the south, and decided to go there. As he was the chairman of the Finnish-India society at the time, he was invited by the Indian government to stay there for a month. During this time, he got to meet people who introduced him to some of his most important future musical collaborators, the drummer Guru Karaikudi Mani and the singer Bombay Jayashri.
‘’I would not have done anything without these people. I have had some conductors who do my music, but the most interest in my stuff has been in the cross-cultural things. Because nobody else is doing that, and I am not interested in the mainstream Western modernist style.’’
Although music has been a big part of Eero’s life, he also has a passion for writing. Throughout the years, he has released four books, fiction and non-fiction, about Italy and its history in Finnish. The fifth book, which he is currently working on, tells the story of male castrato singers — the soprani naturali— who were trained in the orphanages of Naples. It is based on a play that he wrote, and a follow-up to his previous book about female singers in Venice in the 1700s. Since in the Papal States women were not allowed to sing in churches and in the theatre, young boys and male castrato singers were used to sing the high parts. Eero’s two books, therefore, go together and explore the way that orphanages were used to train singers for the high parts.
Eero has visited Circolo Scandinavo many times, and each time is different. He describes his visit in the autumn of 2025 as very nice, consisting of a group of kind and interesting people. He even got inspired by another resident’s singing, which gave life to a new character in his book.
“I make a scene where a castrato singer comes to Rome and has a conversation with a female soprano. And they start discussing, you know, whether their voices are similar or different, and then they organise this prank, that which the woman comes into the all-male choir to sing the soprano part, impersonating a castrato voice. And that is all because of Hedvig, because I met her.”
Written by: Sara Rynefors
Photo taken by: Sara Rynefors