Biography
Helve Sastok is a composer, performer, educator, clinician, adjudicator, and sole proprietor of a music school called Music Everywhere! She is also author (composer and graphic artist) of a series of children’s piano books. Helve has a Master of Music and a Bachelor of Music degree (With Distinction) in composition as well as two piano performance diplomas. She is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre, a member of the Canadian League of Composers, and the Association of Canadian Women Composers. Since 1994, she has been involved as a composer and educator with The Artist in Schools Residency Program throughout Alberta. She is an Artist with the LTTA program through the Royal Conservatory since 2007. She has given workshops in various centres on composition, piano pedagogy, Canadian music and twentieth century music that have been well received, as has her work in the public schools during Canada Music Week. Helve’s compositions have been performed in North America and Europe.
Helve Sastok was born August 31, 1958 in Edmonton, Alberta of parents who had recently emigrated from Estonia. She was brought up in this northern European environment, with Estonian spoken at home and only English in later years. Music is an integral part of the Estonian culture, and, as a result, she was placed into music lessons. Helve began group piano lessons in 1964 at six years of age and was quickly placed into private lessons the following year, with Lydia Pals. In 1966, she began violin lessons with Serge Eremenko. These two stayed as her performance instruments all the way through university, with the addition of pipe organ lessons in her final years of the undergraduate degree.
In 1976, she entered the University of Alberta, the Department of Music, and graduated in 1980, with a Bachelor of Music (With Distinction) in Composition with a minor in piano performance with Ernesto Lejano. Her composition teachers have included Violet Archer, Malcolm Forsyth, Manus Sasonkin, Alfred Fischer, Howard Bashaw, and Laurie Radford. From 1979 onwards, she performed various piano recitals which also involved her compositions, across Canada and in Europe. She also added two more diplomas to her name in 1988: Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto (Piano Performer) and an Associate in Music, Western Board (Pianoforte Performer). These were also busy years for teaching and composing, plus raising her family of two boys.
From 1990 to 1997, Helve focused her compositional activities on a series of piano books for children. Music Everywhere! is a program created by her to be developmentally appropriate to the age level of a child. It is a unique program making use of improvisation and composition as a basis of learning to play the piano. The Artist in Schools Residency Program became part of Helve’s life in January 1993, when her proposal for a composition residency was accepted. Not only was she teaching private and group lessons (up to the Royal Conservatory ARCT level and all the theoretical subjects involved), but she began working in many elementary schools in Alberta, teaching the children how to compose. As well, in 2007, she joined the Learning Through The Arts program through the Royal Conservatory of Music based in Toronto, Ontario. This is an international educational initiative dedicated to changing the way core curriculum is taught and learned in the public schools. Her belief in the importance of music for all children is evident in all the various facets of education she is involved with.
Helve was also accepted into the Boris Roubakine Piano Club, Edmonton in 1995 and has since improved her piano performance under the musical influences of such names as Nelita True, Marek Jablonski, Stephane Lemelin, Bela Siki, and Jean Paul Sevilla.
In 1999, Helve chose to pursue her dream of returning to university for post- graduate work. She completed a Master of Music in Composition in 2003 at the University of Alberta.
Three of her pieces have been released on CD: ‘Sailing the High ‘C” on Cult Figures, ‘Elegy’ on Glossa, and ‘Duologue’ on Brief Confessions.