Nummi, Seppo (Antero Yrjönpoika)

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Nummi, Seppo (Antero Yrjönpoika)

Nummi, Seppo (Antero Yrjönpoika), Finnish composer, music critic, and festival administrator; b. Oulu, May 30, 1932; d. Tampere, Aug. 1, 1981. He studied at the Univ. of Helsinki and at the Sibelius Academy, and his private composition teacher was Yrjö Kilpinen. He began writing music criticism for the newspaper Uusi Suomi in 1953. In 1967 he founded the Savonlinna Opera Festival. He then was executive director of the Helsinki Festival (1969–77). As a composer, he is best known for his many songs in a fine lyrical mode, in the tradition of Hugo Wolf and Kilpinen; he also wrote some chamber music. He publ. Musica fennica (with T. Makinen; Helsinki, 1965) and Modern Musik (Stockholm, 1966).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire