Heli Hartikainen

Heli Hartikainen is an award-winning saxophonist, 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 internationally acclaimed debut solo album, the 3D sound work CHRONOVARIATIONS (2024), won the Finnish Critics’ Association’s honorary prize for the year’s most significant artistic breakthrough, and was nominated for Best Jazz Album at the prestigious Emma Awards.

Interbody (2026) examines time from the perspective of the human body: geological, experiential, and corporeal time as embodied experience. At its core is the tenor saxophone, extended through a custom-built sampler organism that responds in real time to pitch and volume. A degree of randomness is built into the system, creating an unpredictable polyphonic counterpart to the performer, merging improvisation and algorithmic processes, the human and the machine-organism – and keeping the performer on their toes.

Heli Hartikainen – tenor saxophone and live electronics
Kaj Mäki–Ullakko – sound engineering