Sampo Kasurinen is a Finnish composer based in Helsinki, working across opera, orchestral and chamber music, and film. His awards include first prizes in the Esko Linnavalli Big Band Composition Competition (2015) and the Markku Johanson Composition Competition (2018).

For Sleep Cycles, he developed an electronically extended accordion in close collaboration with Harri Kuusijärvi. The concerto was written for Kuusijärvi and the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. Transcendental Concerto, written for pianist Joonas Ahonen and the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra, brings a human soloist into dialogue with a self-playing piano that continues and transforms the pianist’s playing.

His chamber opera Trapped Butterfly, created with librettist Aina Bergroth, revisits Puccini’s Madama Butterfly through an imagined encounter between Butterfly and her grown-up son. His Viola Concerto was commissioned jointly by Oulu Sinfonia and Sinfonia Lahti for Lilli Maijala. He is also composing the score for Virpi Suutari’s upcoming documentary If Tears Were Pearls.

Originally a jazz saxophonist, Kasurinen brings experience as a performer and arranger to his composition. His extensive arranging work spans symphony orchestras, big bands and collaborations with artists from jazz and popular music.

Kasurinen studied composition at the Jazz Institute Berlin and the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. His teachers have included John Hollenbeck, Veli-Matti Puumala and Matthew Whittall. In 2019, he participated in Creative Dialogue XI, studying composition with Kaija Saariaho.