Holy Grail found

For the last six years I have been trying to find a recording of Kaija Saariaho's Io.  This piece is composed for chamber orchestra, tape and live electronics.  Io is a piece I have read about in various sources yet never heard.  A colleague of mine told me about a performance he saw at UC San Diego years back.  This only added to the mystery and legend of Io.

The only recording of this piece I could find is an out of print CD of Saariaho's music entitled Meet the Composer.  I have looked at various music stores, especially ones that specialize in classical music and no one could order it for me.  I have also looked online at various e-tailers and even eBay looking for this CD.  I even search the internet for a bootleg copy of the album to no avail.  This piece and this disc had become my Holy Grail.

That is until last night.  I happened across a website that had an "advanced" mp3 search engine.  So I tried the keywords "Saariaho" and "Io."  Sure enough, it worked!  The search yielded a listing for the meet the composer album.  So I downloaded it.  Now let me say that I do not normally download commercially available CDs without paying.  The only exception I would make is for recordings like this that have been out of print for years.

I finally got the chance to listen to this piece last night.  After years of waiting, I have a copy of the recording.  It was worth the wait.  The piece was better that I could have imagined.  The sound world drew me in right from the beginning and did not let me go.  I am looking forward to hearing it again (and again).

It is my hope that a new recording of this piece is released so that a new wave of people can hear this piece.  Needless to say, I would definitely purchase that recording.