Barbara Helsingius


Barbara Christina Elisabeth Helsingius-Koski was a Swedish-speaking Finnish singer, poet, and Olympic fencer.

Career

She participated at the 1960 Summer Olympics. Trained as a gym teacher, she took her masters in pedagogy at Stanford University. Interested in American art and folk music, she began to record, and her first release, Barbara, was a collection of American folk songs, translated to Finnish.
She became well known internationally, and was a member of Visens venner in Norway, of Visans Vänner in Helsinki, and Yrkestrubadurernas Förening in Sweden, part of the Svenska Visakademien, and the joint Nordic cultural organisation NordVisa.
From 1968–75, she lived in Oslo with her husband, Henry William “Hank” Koski, a diplomat at the U.S. embassy. She was the mother of two daughters. Her family lives in Espoo.

Death

Helsingius died following a long illness on 9 March 2017 in Espoo, Finland at the age of 79.

Prizes