Aarre Merikanto

Aarre Merikanto was born on June 29, 1893, in Helsinki, the son of beloved romantic composer Oskar Merikanto. He studied composition in Leipzig under Max Reger and in Moscow under Sergei Vasilenko, absorbing Scriabin's mystic chromaticism.

In the 1920s, Merikanto produced daring modernist masterworks marked by polytonality, impressionistic color, and rhythmic vitality, notably Ekho (1922), the Concerto for Nine Instruments (1925, winner of the Schott Publishing prize), and his opera Juha (1922). Misunderstood and rejected by the conservative Finnish National Opera during his lifetime, Juha was triumphantly staged after his death, recognized as one of the supreme operatic masterpieces of 20th-century Scandinavia.