Heidi Sundblad-Halme

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Heidi Gabriella Wilhelmina Sundblad-Halme (1903–1973) was a Finnish composer and conductor who started and led the Helsinki Women’s Orchestra for 30 years. She was born in Jakobstad, where her father Henrik Sundblad was a composer, cantor, and organist. In 1930 she married Deputy Judge Helge Halme. The couple traveled to the Soviet Union and the Baltic states and wrote about their trips in Finnish newspapers.

Sundblad-Halme ran a private music school before moving to Helsinki in 1933. Their son Hannu was born in 1935. She studied music at the Helsinki Conservatory from 1927 to 1933 and also studied privately in Berlin and Lund. Her teachers included Dean Dixon, Leo Funtek, Clemens Krauss, Erkki Melartin, Väinö Raitio, and Sulho Ranta.

In the mid-1930s she conducted orchestral concerts in Turku, Tampere, and Helsinki. Georg Schnéevoigt suggested she start an all-women orchestra so the men in regular ensembles wouldn’t be distracted by a female conductor. She formed the Helsinki Women’s Orchestra in 1938 and conducted it until 1968.

She corresponded with musicologist Otto Andersson and poet Jacob Tegengren, and worked with dancer Sage Gundborg-Heilbut. She received the Pro Finlandia award in 1963 and the Director Musices award in 1968. Later in life she said she would have preferred to be a man, noting the opposition and anonymous calls she faced as a woman conductor.

Sundblad-Halme wrote many piano and violin teaching pieces for children. She set texts by poets such as V. M. Fokke, Bertel Gripenberg, L. Onerva, Edith Södergran, Katri Vala, E. von Knape, and Einari Vuorela to music. Her music was published by Fazer Music, now Fennica Gehrman.