Tero Saarinen

The sunshine turns his tousled blond hair into a punk halo as he sits with his back to the window. The blue tracksuit top and white roll neck sweater accent the arctic blue eyes and the pale skin stretched over huge cheekbones. The shaggy mane is remarkable for its gravity-defying determination to point heavenwards, almost as if its owner had just returned from electro-convulsive therapy. Tero Saarinen has a powerful aura but it is more sacerdotal than theatrical and there is an almost sexless purity that exudes from him like a steady radiance.

In short, he looks like most people‘s idea of an ascetic saint. We are inside the Royal Festival Hall in London with a stunning backdrop of the River Thames, pleasure boats, working barges and a panorama of famous white stone buildings and bridges. A Finnish television crew quietly prowls around during our interview and because they are behind me I can easily ignore them but Saarinen is very aware of their presence and he is initially slightly tense, his excellent spoken English sometimes stalling into mumbled Finnish as he seeks for the right expression. His Managing Director, Iiris Autio, is on hand to prompt him with facts and dates, her ...