Einojuhani Rautavaara (b. 1928)

Symphony No. 7 • Angels and Visitations

Einojuhani Rautavaara was born in Helsinki on 9th October, 1928. Graduating from Helsinki University in 1952, he studied at the Sibelius Academy with Aarre Merikanto until 1955, and, after receiving a Koussevitzky Foundation fellowship in 1955, in New York at the Juilliard School with Persichetti, and then with Aaron Copland and Roger Sessions at Tanglewood. He continued with important further study in Ascona with Wladimir Vogel, and with Rudolf Petzold in Cologne. A lecturer at the Sibelius Academy from 1966 to 1971, he was appointed to the state position of professor in arts in 1971.

Rautavaara’s early compositions, typified by the prize-winning A Requiem in Our Ti