“The Hillian expression feels completely original, meaningful, fresh and, not least, thoroughly honest. This is the music of our time in all its glory.”
– HBL
”His music does not sound like anything else I have heard before – how often do you have reason to say this about a piece by a 30-year-old composer?”
– HBL
Sebastian Hilli is a Finnish composer and conductor.
The winner of the Teosto Prize 2019, the Gaudeamus Award 2018, the ’Composers under 30′ category at the 64th International Rostrum of Composers 2017 and the Toru Takemitsu Competition Award 2015, Sebastian Hillis’s music has been described as ”both deeply personal and — despite its apparent simplicity — strikingly original.” (HBL, 2025).
Most recently, Hilli’s violin concerto, 1977 – a Violin Concerto, written for Pekka Kuusisto and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra was hailed as “an event well beyond the ordinary” and described as “nothing less than a milestone in the history of the Finnish violin concerto.” (HBL, 2025).
Photos © Anna-Maria Viksten
“An intense concentration is carrying the music. The music has an urge to advance, but it is done under a control so that the musical energy is well balanced, and the music breathes naturally.”
– Kaija Saariaho
”A new composer is wandering around Europe. A composer to be followed with great care”
– Amadeus Magazine