Heidi Sundblad-Halme

Heidi Gabriella Wilhelmina Sundblad-Halme (25 September 1903 – 30 April 1973) was a Finnish composer[1] and conductor[2] who founded the Helsinki Women's Orchestra and conducted it for 30 years.

Her teachers included Dean Dixon, Leo Funtek, Clemens Krauss, Erkki Melartin, Väinö Raitio, and Sulho Ranta.

[3] Sundblad-Halme corresponded with musicologist Otto Andersson and poet Jacob Tegengren, and collaborated with dancer Sage Gundborg-Heilbut.

In a newspaper interview toward the end of her life, she commented that she “would prefer [to be] a man ... as a woman [I have] received so much opposition and anonymous phone calls and demands to stop all the fuss.”[5] Sundblad-Halme composed many piano and violin teaching pieces for children.

She set texts by the following poets to music: V. M. Fokke, Bertel Gripenberg, L. Onerva, Edith Södergran, Katri Vala, E. von Knape, and Einari Vuorela.