Kuldar Sink (14 September 1942 in

Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

– 29 January 1995 in Kõrve,

Võru County Võru County ( or ''Võrumaa''; ) is a county in southern Estonia. It is bordered by Valga and Põlva counties, Latvia's Alūksne and Ape municipalities, and Russia's Pskov Oblast (making it the only Estonian county to border two countries) ...

) was an Estonian composer and flautist. While his earlier compositions were often neoclassical in style and influenced by

Claude Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

and

Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an ou ...

, the mature part of his career was devoted to

musical modernism In music, modernism is an aesthetic stance underlying the period of change and development in musical language that occurred around the turn of the 20th century, a period of diverse reactions in challenging and reinterpreting older categories o ...

and

avant-garde music Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in its field, with the term "avant-garde" implying a critique of existing aesthetic conventions, rejection of the status quo in favor of unique or original elem ...

. Some of the techniques he employed in his compositions included

serialism In music, serialism is a method of composition using series of pitches, rhythms, dynamics, timbres or other musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though some of his contemporaries were also ...

tone cluster A tone cluster is a musical chord comprising at least three adjacent tones in a scale. Prototypical tone clusters are based on the chromatic scale and are separated by semitones. For instance, three adjacent piano keys (such as C, C, and D) s ...

unified field In music, unified field is the 'unity of musical space' created by the free use of melodic material as harmonic material and vice versa. The technique is most associated with the twelve-tone technique, created by its 'total thematicism' where a t ...

, and

aleatoric music Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music; from the Latin language, Latin word ''alea'', meaning "dice") is music in which some Aspect of music, element of the composition is left to Randomness, chance, and/or some primary element of a ...

. In the latter part of his career he began incorporating traditions from the folk music of Central Asia into his compositions, and he ended his career with a period focused on choral works inspired by Gregorian chant and Estonian folk music. Sink trained at the Tallinn Music School where he earned diplomas in music theory (1960), flute performance (1961), and music composition (1961). At that school he was mentored by

Veljo Tormis Veljo Tormis (7 August 1930 – 21 January 2017) was an Estonian composer, regarded as one of the great contemporary choral composers and one of the most important composers of the 20th century in Estonia.Daitz, Mimi. Ancient Song Recovered: The ...

. He pursued graduate studies in music composition at the

Leningrad Conservatory The N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory () (formerly known as the Petrograd Conservatory and Leningrad Conservatory) is a school of music in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 2004, the conservatory had around 275 faculty members ...

in the early to mid-1960s. His most highly regarded composition is the

song cycle A song cycle () is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in sequence, as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combinat ...

''Sünni ja surma laulud'' (''The Songs of Birth and Death''), which incorporates tonal and rhythmic elements of the Arabic classical music maqām. Composed between 1985 and 1987, the cycle consists of five poems by

Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27, a g ...

. He died in Kõrve in 1995. One of Sink's last compositions included a Biblical-themed opera. He was killed in a 1995 accident. Kuldar was married to the artist

Lilia Sink Lilia (Latin plural, meaning "lilies" in English; singular, ''lilium'') are pit traps arranged in a quincunx pattern dug by the Roman armies in front of their defences. Frequently they had sharpened stakes set inside them as an extra obstacle to ...

. Their daughter is the bioroboticist

Maarja Kruusmaa Maarja Kruusmaa (maiden name Maarja Sink; born 4 January 1970) is an Estonian computer scientist, professor at Tallinn University of Technology, vice-rector for research and head of the biorobotics center at that university. Her main research are ...

. Kuldar's brother is politician

Tunne Kelam Tunne-Väldo Kelam (born 10 July 1936) is an Estonian politician and former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Estonia. He is a member of the Pro Patria and Res Publica Union, part of the European People's Party. Early life and educa ...

References

Bibliography

* 1942 births 1995 deaths 20th-century Estonian composers Tallinn Georg Ots Music School alumni Musicians from Tallinn {{Estonia-composer-stub