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Artist
Barbara Helsingius
12+ albums
finnishfolkSuomi
about
Barbara Christina Elisabeth Helsingius-Koski, née Helsingius (27 September 1937 – 9 March 2017), was a Swedish-speaking Finnish olympic fencer, singer and poet. She participated at the 1960 Summer Olympics. Trained as a gym teacher, she took her masters in pedagogy at Stanford University (1963). Interested in American art and folk music, she began to record, and her first release, (1966) was a collection of American folk songs, translated to Finnish. She became well-known internationally, and is a member of Visens venner in Norway, of Visans Vänner in Helsinki and Yrkestrubadurernas Forening in Sweden, part of the Svenska Visakademien (1999, its only Finn) and the joint Nordic cultural organisation NordVisa. From 1969-1975, she lived in Oslo with her husband, Hank Koski, a diplomat at the USA's embassy. Her family now live in Espoo. She died after a long illness on 9 March 2017, aged 79. After beginning to write her own material, Barbara soon worked in all the Nordic countries. She has also enjoyed successful concert tours Barbara Helsingius Singing The Songs Finland Sings and gigs in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Israel, Spain, Japan, Germany and Latvia. She has appeared countless times on Nordic TV and likes to emphasize the importance of Nordic cooperation. She finds it important to reach across all borders and, with the help of the timeless ballad, build bridges with her music, particularly through translations of her own songs and poems to an