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Birth name | Barbara Christina Elisabeth Helsingius |
Born | 27 September 1937 Helsinki, Finland |
Died | 9 March 2017[1] Espoo, Finland[2] | (aged 79)
Spouse(s) | Henry William Koski; 2 daughters |
Sport | |
Sport | Fencing |
Barbara Christina Elisabeth Helsingius-Koski (née Helsingius; 27 September 1937 – 9 March 2017) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish singer, poet, and Olympic fencer.[3]
She participated at the 1960 Summer Olympics in foil fencing.[4] Trained as a gym teacher, she took her master's degree in pedagogy at Stanford University (1963). Interested in American art and folk music, she began to record, and her first release, Barbara (1966), was a collection of American folk songs, translated to Finnish.[3]
She became well known internationally, and was a member of Visens venner[5] and the joint Nordic cultural organisation NordVisa .[citation needed]
in Norway, of Visans Vänner in Helsinki, and Yrkestrubadurernas Förening in Sweden, part of the Svenska visakademien (1999; its only Finn),From 1968 to 1975, 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, Finland.[3]
Helsingius died following a long illness on 9 March 2017 in Espoo, Finland at the age of 79.[6]
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