Udo Kasemets

Composer Udo Kasemets was born in Tallinn, Estonia, on 16 November 1919. He studied at the Tallinn Conservatory and at Stuttgart's Akademie der Musik, then went to Darmstadt and became exposed to the music and ideas of Krenek, Scherchen and Varèse.

In 1951 he emigrated to Canada, settled in Toronto and worked in Hamilton and Toronto as a conductor, teacher and music critic. He set up Toronto's first new music series, established a series of mixed media events and created and also edited Canavangard, a new music publication series.

Among the influences on his own music were fractal music, I Ching, John Cage, Erik Satie and Morton Feldman.

Kasemets died on 19 January 2014, aged ninety-four.