Finnish composers Sanna Salmenkallio and Panu Aaltio grab major awards

Salmenkallio won the Harpa Nordic Film Composers Award and Aaltio the Best Original Score for a Documentary from The International Film Music Critics Association.

Seasoned composer Sanna Salmenkallio picked up the prestigious Harpa Award in Berlin for the score of Virpi Suutari’s documentary Aalto.

The international jury said her score is “very well written and very intimate. It is humanising the furniture and architecture that is shown in Aalto; making us feel the objects and buildings and creating a strong sense of connecting with both the man and his art. This is what Aalto’s rounded and singular forms sounds like!’

Salmenkallio who trained in classical music at the Sibelius Academy and as a sound designer at the Theatre Academy has composed the scores of more than 30 films, such as the documentaries Three Rooms of Melancholia by Pirjo Honkasalo, Mechanical Love by Phie Ambo and Garden Lovers, Entrepreneur, and Aalto by Virpi Suutari.

Meanwhile her counterpart Panu Aaltio was awarded by The International Film Music Critics Association (IFMCA) for his score of the documentary Tale of the Sleeping Giants by Marko Röhr.

This is the third time Aaltio receives this award after his contribution to MRP Matila Röhr Productions' earlier films in the nature trilogy films Tale of a Forest (2012) and Tale of a Lake (2016).

Underlining Aaltio’s unprecedented trio of awards for the documentary trilogy, the IFMCA jury described the score for Tale of the Sleeping Giants as ‘spellbinding’ and said that although “Aaltio's work in 2021 was confined to his native Finland, it was of outstanding quality and consistency.”

Aaltio (40) who was trained as a cellist since the age of six, also studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He then pursued his studies at University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he received the Harry Warren Scholarship for Excellence in Film Scoring. He began his career working with fellow Finnish composer Tuomas Kantelinen on scores such as Mother of Mine and Year of the Wolf. His credits include the TV series Nurses, Peacemaker and genre films Lake Bodom and upcoming The Twin by Taneli Mustonen.

Check the full list of IFMCA film music awards: CLICK HERE.