Jaakko Mäntyjärvi is a Finnish

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 def ...

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be #Relationship to other music traditions, distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical mu ...

, and a professional translator.

Early life

Mäntyjärvi was born in

Turku Turku ( ; ; , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Aura River (Finland), River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately , while t ...

. He studied

musicology Musicology is the academic, research-based study of music, as opposed to musical composition or performance. Musicology research combines and intersects with many fields, including psychology, sociology, acoustics, neurology, natural sciences, ...

, English language and literature and

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

at the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

, graduating with the equivalent of an MA degree in 1991. In 1987, he was accredited as an Authorized Translator from Finnish to English and English to Finnish. He also studied theory of music and choir conducting at the

Sibelius Academy 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 ...

Professional life

Mäntyjärvi is a professional freelance translator and composer, and also an amateur and semi-professional choral singer and conductor. He is one of Finland’s internationally best known composers of choral music, with a catalog of some 150 works published to date. He has given talks on his works at various choral events in Europe, the USA and Australia, and has occasionally given a course on the history of choral music at the

Compositions

As a composer, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi describes himself as an eclectic traditionalist: adopting influences from a number of styles and periods, and basing his musical idiom largely on traditionally oriented materials. Because he is himself active in making music, his music is very practically oriented; most of his works are for choir. His major choral works include ''Four

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

Songs'' (1984), ''Dagen svalnar...'' (''Day is cooling''; 1991/93), ''Pseudo-Yoik'' (1994), ''El Hambo'' (1997), the 40-part motet ''Tentatio'' (2006), ''Stuttgarter Psalmen'' (2009) and the ''Trinity Service'' (2019). His work '' Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae'' received third prize in the European composition competition for cathedral choirs in 1997. His major commissions include works for the Cork International Choral Festival (1999), the 700th anniversary of the consecration of

Turku Cathedral Turku Cathedral (, ) is the only medieval basilica in Finland and the Mother Church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. It is the central church of the Lutheran Archdiocese of Turku and the seat of the Lutheran Archbishop of Turku, Arch ...

(2000), Chanticleer (2001, 2016), the King’s Singers (2002) and the World Symposium on Choral Music (2008, 2017). He was composer-in-residence of the Tapiola Chamber Choir from 2000 to 2005.

External links

Jaakko Mäntyjärvi's website

Music Finland page on Jaakko Mäntyjärvi

Tove Djupsjöbacka: Jaakko Mäntyjärvi is a composer thoroughly familiar with his instrument - the choir (FMQ 2019)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mantyjarvi, Jaakko 20th-century Finnish classical composers 21st-century Finnish classical composers Living people Musicians from Turku University of Helsinki alumni Translators from Finnish Translators to English Translators from English Translators to Finnish 20th-century Finnish translators 21st-century translators Finnish male classical composers 20th-century Finnish male musicians 21st-century Finnish male musicians Year of birth missing (living people)