Martti Similä - Performer

Martti Iisakki Similä (9 April 1898, Oulu - 9 January 1958, Lahti) was a Finnish conductor, pianist, composer, singer and actor, and a close friend and noted interpreter of Jean Sibelius. As a schoolboy he fought on the White side in the Finnish Civil War of 1918. From the mid-1920s he also made recordings as a singer, and in 1929 he sang and conducted a series of recordings with the Homocord orchestra. He was a conductor at the Finnish Opera (now the Finnish National Opera) from 1927 to 1944. From 1945 to 1951 he was chief conductor of the Helsinki City Orchestra (Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra), where he was known as a warm, innately musical conductor, though critics sometimes found his performances too lenient on detail. In 1951 he moved to Lahti, where he directed the Lahti City Orchestra (now Sinfonia Lahti) until 1957; he was succeeded there by Urpo Pesonen. In 1957 he made his American debut conducting the New York Philharmonic in a Sibelius memorial concert at Carnegie Hall. Similä also worked extensively in Finnish cinema, contributing to some 41 films and composing scores for films including Suomisen perhe, Suomisen Ollin tempaus, Lapatossu and August järjestää kaiken, as well as orchestral pieces and numerous arrangements for choir and orchestra. He published the book Sibeliana (1945). He was the brother of the musician Aapo Similä and the father of journalist and writer Markus Similä. Source: Rondo DB


Usual Name	Martti Similä
Ensembles	Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from 1945 to 1951 Lahti Symphony Orchestra from 1951 to 1957
Links	Wikipedia (fi) , Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra , IMDb

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