Mart Siimer

b. 27.10.1967, Tallinn
Member of the Estonian Composers´ Union since 1992

Mart Siimer has graduated from the Tallinn Music High School with piano (teacher Laine Mets) and composition (teacher Eino Tamberg). He began composing under the guidance of Anne Metsala already as a pupil of the Tallinn Children’s Music School. At the age of 11, he also started to play organ.
After graduation from the Tallinn Music High School, he went on to study mathematics at the Tartu State University. From 1986, he continued with composition studies with Prof. Eino Tamberg at the Tallinn State Conservatoire, graduating in 1990. In 1992–1993, he complemented his studies at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo with Bjørn Kruse. In 1996–1998, he took Marster’s studies with Prof.-s Christopher Rouse, James Willey and Augusta R. Thomas at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, USA.
In 2004, Mart Siimer acquired PhD at the Estonian Academy of Music (thesis on Stratification of harmony in Olivier Messiaen’s organ piece Le banquet céleste.

Since 1999, Mart Siimer teaches composition and theoretical substances of music (Notation and Technics of Contemporary Composition a.o.) at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. In his extensive career as a teacher, Mart Siimer has taught at the Tallinn Music High School (1992–1993), he has taught solfeggio and harmony at the Tallinn Conservatoire (1994–1996), composition and theoretical substances in private university Universidad Javeriana in Colombia (1998/99).
Mart Siimer has served also as music critic and researcher, as well as an editor for the magazine Teater. Muusika. Kino [Theatre. Music. Cinema] (1989–1991). He has worked in the Estonian Theatre and Music Museum in the music department (1993-1996), and served as an organist in Tallinn St. Peter and Paul Church (with breaks from 1988 to 2004), and piano and organ accompanist with several choirs (eg 1993–1996 Tallinn Boys' Choir). In 2010, he worked as an organist in Odda municipality in Hordaland, Norway.

As a composer, Mart Siimer has written large-scale symphonic, vocal and choir works, as well as instrumental and vocal music for a number of various chamber ensembles. His works have been performed in contemporary music festival NYYD in Tallinn, in Estonian Music Days Festival and in Estonian Young Composers’ Festival in Tartu. The most beloved part of his oeuvre is his choir music. His choir works have been performed by many Estonian and foreign performers in many countries – in 2003 – Songbridge Festival in Newfoundland, Canada, in 2004 – Arvo Pärt Festival in Groningen, Netherlands, and in 2007 in song fest Bridges of Song in Finland. His choir song Homme [Tomorrow] has been in repertoire of many Estonian traditional song celebrations. With his choir music Mart Siimer has won several awards – in 1988, he won the First Prize in choir music cathegory of Soviet Union Young Composers’ Competition in Moscow, and in 1995, the Second Prize in the sacred choral works contest in Amiens, France (Concours des Cathédrales de Picardie).
In 2007, Mart Siimer was the laureate of the Heino Eller prize, awarded by the Estonian Theatre and Music Museum. Estonian Choral Association together with the Estonian Composers' Union gave Mart Siimer the title of Choral Composer of the Year 2013.

© EMIK 2010
(updated in January 2014)

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