Olli Ahvenlahti (born 6 August 1949, in

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

) is a Finnish

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and conductor. He is of

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

descent. Ahvenlahti succeeded

Ossi Runne Ossi Runne (23 April 1927 – 5 November 2020) was a Finnish trumpeter, bandleader, orchestra leader, composer, and record producer.

as the Finnish conductor at the

Eurovision Song Contest The Eurovision Song Contest (), sometimes abbreviated to ESC and often known simply as Eurovision, is an international songwriting competition organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), featuring participants representing pr ...

for the 1990 Contest. In all, he conducted seven entries until the 1998 Contest (after which the

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

was abolished) - the exceptions being the 1995 Contest and the 1997 Contest in which Finland did not participate. At these contests, Ahvenlahti was part of the Finnish commentary team. He has played alongside a large number of Finnish artists, most notably the

UMO Jazz Orchestra 250px, UMO Jazz Orchestra UMO Jazz Orchestra is a Finnish big band. It was founded in 1975 by jazz musicians Heikki Sarmanto and Esko Linnavalli. UMO is an abbreviation of "Uuden Musiikin Orkesteri" (New Musical Orchestra). Since 1984 UMO has bee ...

in the 1970s. During the 1990s he worked for the Finnish radio and television company

YLE Yleisradio Oy ( Finnish, literally "General Radio Ltd." or "General Broadcast Ltd."; abbr. Yle ; sv, Rundradion Ab, italics=no), translated to English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, found ...

References

External links

Olli Ahvenlahden verkkosivut

YLE Elävä arkisto: Olli Ahvenlahti livenä
1949 births Living people Musicians from Helsinki Finnish conductors (music) Finnish pianists Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest Eurovision Song Contest conductors Finnish jazz pianists Finnish jazz composers Finnish people of Russian descent 21st-century conductors (music) 21st-century pianists {{Finland-composer-stub