Einojuhani Rautavaara was a Finnish composer of classical music. Among the most notable Finnish composers since Jean Sibelius (1865–1957), Rautavaara wrote a great number of works spanning various styles. These include eight symphonies, nine operas and twelve concertos, as well as numerous vocal and chamber works. Having written early works using 12-tone serial techniques, his later music may be described as neo-romantic and mystical. His major works include his first piano concerto (1969), Cantus Arcticus (1972) and his seventh symphony, Angel of Light (1994).
Osvaldo Noé Golijov is an Argentine composer of classical music and music professor, known for his vocal and orchestral work.
Olli Paavo Antero Kortekangas is a Finnish composer.
Leif Selim Segerstam is a Finnish conductor, composer, violinist, violist and pianist, especially known for writing 371 symphonies, along with other works in his extensive oeuvre.
Kalevi Ensio Aho is a Finnish composer.
Atso Almila is a Finnish orchestral conductor, music director, composer, trombonist and teacher.
Joonas Kokkonen was a Finnish composer. He was one of the most internationally famous Finnish composers of the 20th century after Sibelius; his opera The Last Temptations has received over 500 performances worldwide, and is considered by many to be Finland's most distinguished national opera.
Aulis Heikki Sallinen is a Finnish contemporary classical music composer. His music has been variously described as "remorselessly harsh", a "beautifully crafted amalgam of several 20th-century styles", and "neo-romantic". Sallinen studied at the Sibelius Academy, where his teachers included Joonas Kokkonen. He has had works commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, and has also written seven operas, eight symphonies, concertos for violin, cello, flute, horn, and English horn, as well as several chamber works. He won the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1978 for his opera Ratsumies.
Jorma Juhani Panula is a Finnish conductor, composer, and teacher of conducting. He has mentored many Finnish conductors, such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mikko Franck, Sakari Oramo, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Osmo Vänskä, Klaus Mäkelä and Tarmo Peltokoski.
Mikko Kyösti Heiniö is a Finnish composer and musicologist.
Edvard Armas Järnefelt, was a Finnish conductor and composer, who achieved some minor success with his orchestral works Berceuse (1904) and Praeludium (1900). He spent much of his conducting career at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, Sweden.
Søren Nils Eichberg is a German/Danish classical composer and conductor.
Kevin Matthew Puts is an American composer, best known for his opera The Hours and for winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for his first opera Silent Night and a Grammy Award in 2023 for his concerto Contact.
Ilkka Taneli Kuusisto is a Finnish opera composer, conductor, choirmaster and organist.
Mikk Murdvee is an Estonian-Finnish conductor and violinist living in Helsinki, Finland.
Jussi Jalas was a Finnish conductor and composer.
Mason Wesley Bates is a Grammy award-winning American composer of symphonic music and DJ of electronic dance music. He is the first composer-in-residence of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and he has also been in residence with Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Pittsburgh Symphony, and the California Symphony. In addition to his notable works Mothership, Anthology of Fantastic Zoology, and The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, he composed the score to Gus Van Sant's film The Sea of Trees. In a 2018 survey of American orchestras, he was rated the second-most performed living composer.
Sebastian Fagerlund is a Finnish composer. He is described as “a post-modern impressionist whose sound landscapes can be heard as ecstatic nature images which, however, are always inner images, landscapes of the mind”. Echoes of Western culture, Asian musical traditions, and heavy metal have all been detected in his music.
Herbert Willi is an Austrian composer of classical music, whose orchestral works, concertos and chamber music have been performed internationally and also recorded. Willi composed an opera, Schlafes Bruder, for the Opernhaus Zürich.
Tuomas Turriago is a Finnish composer, pianist and conductor. Since 2004 Turriago has served as senior lecturer in accompaniment at Tampere University of Applied Sciences. He is recognized as the first Finnish composer to record his entire piano oeuvre.
