Kaija Saariaho is the most successful of contemporary Finnish composers, having won a number of international compositions, and has become best known for her works which exploit electronics. The inspiration for writing NoaNoa came at the time of writing the music for the ballet Maa. "I wanted to write down, exaggerate, even abuse certain flute mannerisms that had been haunting me for some years, and thus force myself to move into something new." NoaNoa is the work of a team, and many details in the flute part were worked out with Camilla Hoitenga. The electronic part was developed under the supervision of Jean-Baptiste Barriere with Xavier Chabot as programmer.