Veljo Tormis

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 and one of the most important composers of the 20th century in Estonia.
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.