Heikki Sarmanto

Finnish jazz pianist and composer

b. 22 June 1939, Helsinki, Finland. Sarmanto studied languages and music at Helsinki University and Sibelius Academy before going on to the Berklee College Of Music (1968-71). He was named the best pianist at Montreux in 1971. He led his own bands from 1962 and in 1976 a workshop group he ran became the big band UMO. He has written New Hope Jazz Mass, a jazz ballet and a jazz opera, and was chosen by saxophonist Sonny Rollins to arrange and orchestrate his Saxophone Concerto (1986). He continues to write vocal, orchestral and theatre works in a most assured style.