A pupil of Rautavaara and of Boris Blacher, the Finnish composer Kalevi Aho taught at Helsinki University and then at the Sibelius Academy, before, from 1993, concentrating more exclusively on his activities as a composer. In his compositions, many of which are on a large scale, he makes use of a wide variety of material – traditional and avant-garde. He handles this with considerable virtuosity, as shown in his symphonies.