On October 15, Jaan Rääts celebrates his 75th birthday – one of the most productive Estonian composers and main figures of the stylistic innovation of the 1960s' Estonian music, a longtime leader of musical and social life. Having taken shape in the end of the 1950s, Rääts' individual style with its vivid rhythm, transparent textures and fanciful stylistic allusions has influenced Estonian music through the second half of the XX century. On October 18, Rääts' jubilee concert will take place at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.
Jaan Rääts was born in 1932 in Tartu. He studied piano at the Tartu Music High School and graduated from the Tallinn State Conservatoire in 1957 as the student of Mart Saar and Heino Eller. He has been engaged as the sound engineer of the Estonian Radio and the chief director of music programs at the Estonian TV. For a long time he taught composition at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. From 1964 Rääts was engaged as the vice chairman of the Estonian Composers' Union and from 1974 to 1993 as the chairman of the ECU.
Rääts' basic idiom, peculiar with its rhythmic ostinati and kaleidoscopic, full of contrasts development, has survived through various stylistic influences since today. Instrumental music, including ten symphonies, two orchestral concertos, 24 instrumental concertos and a number of chamber works scored for various ensembles, forms the better part of his oeuvre. The most popular work of Jaan Rääts and one of the most played works of Estonian music is his Concerto for chamber orchestra op. 16 performed on all continents in more than 40 countries since today.