Sointu Aalto (b. 2004); Canada

Sointu Aalto (b. 2004 in Helsinki, now based in Treaty 6) is a cellist and composer interested in the connection between music, mathematics, social justice, and philosophy. Their original music has been presented by New Music Edmonton, Continuum Contemporary Music, Contemporary Showcase Edmonton and others. She has had the opportunity to learn something about composition from many people including Heather Hindman, Andrey Talpash, Christina Volpini, Dinuk Wijeratne, Charles Stolte, Steven Rice, and Allan Gilliland. These people have described her music as “daunting”, “disturbing”, “daring”, “truthful and gripping, and simultaneously polished and raw”. She is the recent winner of Frost School of Music’s 2020 Ensemble Ibis International Composition Competition, Penn State 2021 International High School Composer Competition, Arcady Ensemble’s 2019 emerging composer competition, Continuum New Music’s 2021 Teen Composer Award, CFMTA’s national 2020 student composer competition, and ACNMP’s national 2020 and 2021 composition competitions. Sointu studies cello with Josephine van Lier, and performs solo and as part of Jams quartet and the EYO. She is also interested in academics, and especially science. In their free time, Sointu likes to THINK.