Arvo Prt was born in 1935 in Paide, Estonia. He is an Estonian classical composer and a composer of sacred music.

After studies with Heino Ellers composition class in Tallinn, he worked from 1958 to 1967 as a sound engineer for Estonian Radio. Since the late 1970s, Prt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also takes inspiration from Gregorian chant. He is often associated with the New Simplicity movement. As one of the most radical representatives of the so-called Soviet Avant-garde, Prts work passed through a profound evolutionary process. His first creative period began with neo-classical piano music. Then followed ten years in which he made his own individual use of the most important compositional techniques of the avant-garde: dodecaphony, composition with sound masses, aleatoricism, collage technique. Nekrolog (1960), the first piece of dodecaphonic music written in Estonia, and Perpetuum mobile (1963) gained the composer his first recognition by the West. In his collage works avant-garde and early music confront each other boldly and irreconcilably, a confrontation which attains its most extreme expression in his last collage piece Credo (1968). But by this time all the compositional devices Prt had employed to date had lost all their former fascination and begun to seem pointless to him. The search for his own voice drove him into a withdrawal from creative work lasting nearly eight years, during which he engaged with the study of Gregorian Chant, the Notre Dame school and classical vocal polyphony. In 1976 music emerged from this silence the little piano piece Fr Alina. It is obvious that with this work Prt had discovered his own path. The new compositional principle used here for the first time, which he called tintinnabuli (Latin for little bells), has defined his work right up to today. The tintinnabuli principle does not strive towards a progressive inrease in complexity, but rather towards an extreme reduction of sound materials and a limitation to the essential. His recent (2008) Symphony No. 4 is named Los Angeles and was dedicated to Mikhail Khodorkovsky. It is Prt's first symphony written in over 37 years, since 1971's Symphony No. 3. It premiered in Los Angeles, California, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on 10 January 2009, and has been nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. On 10 December 2011, he was appointed a member of the Pontifical Council for Culture for a fiveyear renewable term by Pope Benedict XVI.

Arvo Prt Fr Alina: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88zxugR_0w0 **********************************************************************************

Neeme Jrvi (Estonian pronunciation: [neme jri]) (born June 7, 1937, Tallinn) is an Estonian conductor. Hei s a Chief Conductor of the Residentie Orkest (The Hague), Conductor Laureate and Artistic Advisor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Music Director Emeritus of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor Emeritus of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, First Principal Guest Conductor of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. Since September 2010, Neeme Jrvi will be the Music Director of Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO). During his long and highly successful career, Neeme Jrvi has conducted many of the worlds most prominent orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Philharmonia, Czech Philharmonic, Zrich Tonhalle and BBC Symphony Orchestras, the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the major orchestras of Scandinavia and the symphony orchestras of Sydney and Melbourne in Australia. In the US he has appeared with the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony and Philhadelphia Orchestras. His operatic engagements have included the Metropolitan Opera, the Tatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the Opra de Paris (Bastille) and San Francisco Opera. Maestro Jrvi has amassed a distinguished recording repertoire that includes more than 400 discs on the Deutsche Grammophon, Chandos, BIS, Orfeo, EMI and BMG labels, as well as on the Detroit Symphony Orchestras independent label. In addition to a number of operas, he has recorded complete symphony cycles of Wilhelm Stenhammar and Hugo Alfvn; Niels Gade and Carl Nielsen, Sibelius, Brahms and Franz Schmidt, Martin and Dvok, Estonian composers Arvo Prt and Eduard Tubin; Glazunov, Prokofiev and Shostakovich and many others. Neeme Jrvi and Gteborg Symfoniker (GSO) were awarded a Swedish Grammy for their recording of Aurora, Music from the Far North, and this reflects the high standard to which the orchestra were raised under his direction. Many international accolades and awards have been bestowed upon Neeme Jrvi. In Estonia these include an honorary doctorate from the Music Academy of Estonia in Tallinn, and the Order of the National Coat of Arms from the President of the Republic of Estonia, Mr. Lennart Meri. The mayor of Tallinn presented Maestro Jrvi with the citys first-ever ceremonial sash and coat of arms insignia, and he has been named one of the Estonians of the Century. He is also the honorary member of Estonian Theatre and Music Museums council board. Neeme Jrvi holds an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Detroits Wayne State University, as well as honorary degrees from the University of Aberdeen, the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and the University of Michigan; and Commander of the North Star Order from King Karl Gustav XVI of Sweden. Grieg- Peer Gynt/Jrvi - Berliner Philharmoniker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPLXNmKvLBQ *********************************************************************************

Priit Prn (born 26 August 1946 in Tallinn) is an Estonian cartoonist and animation director whose films have enjoyed success among critics as well as the public at various film festivals. Prn formerly worked as a plant ecologist; his career in animation began when he accepted Rein Raamat's proposal to make a design for Kilplased (1974). After a brief apprenticeship in Joonisfilm, he directed his first film Is the Earth Round? in 1977. Prn's most important films are considered to be Triangle (1982), Breakfast on the Grass (1987), Hotel E (1991), 1895 (codirected by Janno Pldma, 1995) and Night of the Carrots (1998). Prn's style is characterized by black humour, playful surrealism and a unique graphic style. His somewhat crude style marked the departure from both Rein Raamat's overtly serious and moralizing films as well as the Disneyesque style propagated by the directors of Soyuzmultfilm. In his footsteps (and occasionally copying his style to a large degree) have followed numerous new generation Estonian film makers, most notably lo Pikkov and Priit Tender. Influences of Prn's graphical style can be also be seen in such commercial animated series as Rugrats and AAAHH!!! Real Monsters! directed by Igor Kovalyov. In 2002 Prn was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Animated Film Association. Divers in the Rain (2010), co-directed with his wife Olga Prn, became the most successful Estonian animated film of all time with its 18th award at KROK International Animated Film Festival in Ukraine. Prn had taught animation at the Arts Academy of the Turku University of Applied Sciences in Turku, Finland since 1994 and now he is teaching at Estonian Academy of Arts. *********************************************************************************