Karina Bonnier asks for the names of Swedish composers. Swedish music-lovers are touchingly devoted to Wilhelm Stenhammar, whom they like to rate equal to his contemporaries Sibelius and Nielsen. But Stenhammar, an astute musician, considered Sibelius a far more original creator than he was himself, and he was right. Among contemporary composers, the following could be added to the names already posted by others: Bengt Hambraeus, known primarily for choral and organ compositions; Hans Eklund, a middle-of-the-road tonal modernist; and the more avant-garde Daniel Bortz. Do Swedish Finns meet Ms. Bonnier's criteria? In they do, we would of course have to include Sibelius, as well as Sven Einar Englund, a relatively conservative modern, whose music resembles that of Shostakovich. I think his recently released cello concerto is a masterpiece. And there is Pehr Henrik Nordgren, who hails from Aland (with a little hole over the first A), an island east of the Stockholm Archipelago which is inhabited by Swedish speakers but which is part of Finland. Much of Nordgren's haunting, modernist music was written for the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra. Jon Gallant ([log in to unmask]