Composer Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, a chorister himself, is the creator of popular choral works that have gained popularity far beyond his native country. Mäntyjärvi calls his style eclectic traditional; it has few modernist elements but draws inspiration from various sources. Mäntyjärvi was born in 1963 in the Finnish city of Turku. He attended the University of Helsinki, studying musicology and linguistics. In 1987, he earned accreditation as a Finnish-to-English and English-to-Finnish translator, and he has been active in that capacity ever since. After earning a master's degree at the university in 1991, Mäntyjärvi went on for further studies in choral conducting and music theory at the Sibelius Academy. He has sung with various Finnish choirs, including the Savonlinna Opera Festival Choir, the Tapiola Chamber Choir (where he was the deputy conductor from 1998 to 2004, as well as composer-in-residence from 2000 to 2005), and the Sibelius Academy Vocal Ensemble. Most of Mäntyjärvi's music has been for chorus, although he has also written several orchestral and chamber works. His first major success was Four Shakespeare Songs, written in 1984 while he was still a student. Other significant works by Mäntyjärvi include Pseudo-Yoik (1994, recorded more than 30 times), Canticum Calamitatis Maritimae (1997, commemorating an Estonian ferry disaster), and Cornish Lullaby (2011). Mäntyjärvi has fulfilled several high-profile commissions, including Psalm 150 in Kent Treble Bob Minor, written in 1999 for the Cork International Choral Festival in Ireland; Ecce magnus presbite, written in 2000 for the 700th anniversary of Turku Cathedral; and Tentatio (2006), a 40-voice motet composed for the Tallis Festival. Mäntyjärvi has also received commissions from the vocal groups Chanticleer, and the King's Singers, among others. His Trinity Service of 2019 was included on an all-Mäntyjärvi recording released in 2020 on the Hyperion label by conductor Stephen Layton and the Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge.