Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often credited with having helped Finland develop a stronger national identity when the country was struggling from several attempts at Russification in the late 19th century.
The Sibelius Academy is part of the University of the Arts Helsinki and a university-level music school which operates in Helsinki and Kuopio, Finland. It also has an adult education centre in Järvenpää and a training centre in Seinäjoki. The Academy is the only music university in Finland. It is among the biggest European music universities with roughly 1,400 enrolled students.
Eero Aarne Pekka Tarasti is a Finnish musicologist and semiotician, currently serving as Professor Emeritus of Musicology at the University of Helsinki. He has contributed significantly to the semiotics of music.
Atso Almila is a Finnish orchestral conductor, music director, composer, trombonist and teacher.
Robert Kajanus was a Finnish conductor, composer, and teacher. In 1882, he founded the Helsinki Orchestral Society, Finland's first professional orchestra. As a conductor, he was also a notable champion and interpreter of the music of Jean Sibelius.
The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague is a university in the centre of Prague, Czech Republic, specialising in the study of music, dance, drama, film, television and multi-media. It is the largest art school in the Czech Republic, with more than 350 educators and researchers, and 1500 students.
The Hochschule für Musik Detmold is a university-level music school situated in Detmold, Germany.
The Theatre Academy is one of the three academies of the University of the Arts Helsinki and offers education in theatre and dance. It is Finland's largest education provider in its field and, with the exception of acting, the only one in the country. In September 2014, there were 349 students at TeaK: 315 in the bachelor and master programmes, and the remaining 34 were studying for a licentiate or doctoral degree.
Matti Juhani Raekallio is a Finnish pianist.
Leo Funtek was a Slovenian violinist, conductor and arranger. He is best known for work as a music professor and for his 1922 arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition.
Elina Vähälä is a Finnish classical violinist.
Glenda Dawn Goss is an American author and music historian whose special interests are music and culture, early modernism, critical editing, and European-American points of cultural contact. Her most notable work has revolved around the life and works of the Finnish composer, Jean Sibelius.
The Illinois State UniversityCollege of Fine Arts (Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts) offers programs in art, music, theatre, dance, and arts technology. The name of the college was officially changed to "Wonsook Kim College of Fine Arts" in recognition of a $12 million gift from the artist and alumn Wonsook Kim.
Zurich University of the Arts has approximately 2,500 students, which makes it the largest arts university in Switzerland. The university was established in 2007, following the merger between Zurich's School of Art and Design (HGKZ) and the School of Music, Drama, and Dance (HMT). ZHdK is one of four universities affiliated with Zürcher Fachhochschule.
Kharkiv National University of Arts named after I. P. Kotlyarevsky is the leading music and drama institution of higher education in Ukraine. The university trains about 900 undergraduates, graduates and postgraduates in music and theatre art. It enjoys Level IV accreditation, which is the highest under Ukraine's national standards, and is licensed to train foreign students.
The Wood Nymph, Op. 15, is a programmatic tone poem for orchestra composed in 1894 and 1895 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The ballade, which premiered on 17 April 1895 in Helsinki, Finland, with Sibelius conducting, follows the Swedish writer Viktor Rydberg's 1882 poem of the same title, in which a young man, Björn, wanders into the forest and is seduced and driven to despair by a skogsrå, or wood nymph. Organizationally, the tone poem consists of four informal sections, each of which corresponds to one of the poem's four stanzas and evokes the mood of a particular episode: first, heroic vigor; second, frenetic activity; third, sensual love; and fourth, inconsolable grief.
Kari Antero Turunen, is a Finnish artistic director, choral conductor, ensemble tenor, and music scholar and lecturer.
Jutta Seppinen is a Finnish conductor and mezzo-soprano.
Janne Juhani Mertanen is a Finnish classical pianist. He has studied at the Joensuu Conservatory under Matti Haapasalo and at the Sibelius Academy as a student of, among others, Erik T. Tawaststjerna. The pianist, who specializes in Chopin, made his debut at London's Wigmore Hall with a Chopin program in 1994.
The Symphony in F minor, Op. 4, is a four-movement symphony for orchestra written from 1896 to 1897 by the precocious, 19-year old Finnish composer Ernst Mielck. The piece, reportedly inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Ice-Maiden", premiered in Helsinki on 20 October 1897, with Robert Kajanus conducting the Helsinki Orchestral Society. The next year, on 3 December, Mielck experienced the greatest moment of his career when the Berlin Philharmonic, one of the world's most acclaimed orchestras, played his symphony. This success, however, was short-lived, as Mielck died of consumption on 22 October 1899 while on medical leave in Locarno, Switzerland. As such, the F minor Symphony is his only contribution to the symphonic canon.
