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Veljo Tormis
Estonian composer (1930-2017) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Veljo Tormis (7 August 1930 in Kuusalu - 21 January 2017) was an Estonian composer. He was called as one of the greatest living choral composers[1][2] and one of the most important composers of the 20th century in Estonia.[3]
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Internationally, he is known from his extensive body of choral music, which passes 500 individual choral songs, most of it a cappella. The great majority of these pieces are based on traditional ancient Estonian folksongs (regilaulud), either textually, melodically, or merely stylistically.