Ida Ekman

[1] She studied at the Russian Girls School in Helsinki,[1] Vienna (under Pauline Lucca), Germany and Italy.

In 1895, when she was 19, she married the pianist, composer and conductor Karl Ekman, a piano student of Ferruccio Busoni.

Ernst Mielck's song "Heimath" (1898) was dedicated to Ida Morduch-Ekman.

[7] She accompanied Robert Kajanus and Jean Sibelius on their European tour in the summer of 1900.

[8] She was the a soloist with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra on its visit to the 1900 World's Fair in Paris.

[5] She probably sang in the concert of 25 July 1900 in the Salle de la Grande Harmonie in Brussels.

[8] She had earlier been instrumental in bringing Sibelius's music to the attention of Johannes Brahms, who died in 1897.

36 – "Black Roses", "But my bird is long in homing" and "Tennis at Trianon"; "On a balcony by the sea", Op.

90 songs for the first time at her jubilee concerts in October 1917, at the end of her career.

[12] After the retirement of Aino Ackté, Ida Ekman became the preeminent interpreter of Sibelius's songs.

[15] She also recorded songs by Richard Strauss and arias from operas by Tchaikovsky and Handel.

She influenced Sibelius to orchestrate some of his songs originally written for voice and piano; these included "Spring is flying" (Op.

[17] On 21 October 1905, she sang Hector Berlioz's Les nuits d'été as part of the seventh of Ferruccio Busoni's Orchesterabende in Berlin.

", "Spring Passes So Quickly", and "Lost") dedicated to Ida Ekman turned up in a Helsinki bank vault.