Biography 

Heliä Mailiis Viirakivi started her music studies at the Juvenalia Music Institute with classical flute. After finishing the music school level, she continued to play the flute, but changed her main instrument to classical singing and commenced studying at the Espoo Music Institute, where she graduated from the higher music school level in the year 2015. After that, she continued her vocal studies at the Conservatory of Helsinki and graduated, received a bachelor's degree from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater in the year 2020, and in this year 2022 completed her studies at the same institution with a master's degree majoring in contemporary music and contemporary improvisation. During her academic education, Viirakivi has also studied actively in the opera studio and musical class of the Juvenalia Music Institute. She has upgraded her knowledge of classical singing with several master classes led by, among others, Heikki Pellinen, Anitta Ranta and Hanna-Leena Haapamäki. During her vocal studies Viirakivi has played flute for example in Wind orchestra Louhi and during of her master studies took flute lessons as the second instrument. 

As a performing freelance artist, Viirakivi has sang as a soloist and in ensembles and choirs. She has collaborated with the wind orchestra Louhi as an orchestra musician and vocal soloist, for example, on Louhi’s mark debut album in 2008 and in a Christmas concert in Vantaa church in 2016. In addition, Viirakivi has worked as a soloist for, among others, Vantaa's female singers, Juvenalia choir and Tallinn International Youth Orchestra. In choral music, she has worked as a choir singer in the Kauniainen Church Choir, the Vantaa Women's Choir (heinäkuoro) and most recently in the Juvenalia Choir in 2022. Viirakivi also actively sings in the vocal group L'Armonia and the vocal improvisation group Ääni-Ilmiö. Viirakivi has also worked and recorded as an improviser in different ensembles and collaborated with several composers.

Besides music, Viirakivi has studied and performed actively in theater and dance performances. She has studied several different dance styles and completed a basic degree in dance at Dance Center Ani in 2008. In Juvenalia's musical training, she played the lead role of Saima in the musical Saima and Aale musical (com./arr. Säde Bartling) in 2010. In 2013, Viirakivi graduated as an actor from Music theatre expression school Musti Oy where she played among others the monologue Hilda Husso by Maria Jotuni and the lead role in Inkeri Kilpinen's play Naisen Tarina (The Story of a Woman). For her final work she composed the music for an Egyptian children's story, turning it into a song play for children under the name Pähkinähiirten häät (The Wedding of the Nutmice). In July 2022, Viirakivi participated to the Composed Theater Collaboratory at the Time of Music festival led by the American composer Mark Applebaum where the participants acted as composers and performers of multidiciplinary works.