Raoul Björkenheim
Finnish musician
Raoul Melvin Björkenheim (born February 11, 1956) is a Finnish-American jazz guitarist, who has lived in Helsinki, New York, and Los Angeles.
His mother is Finnish-American actress Taina Elg. In his teens he moved to Finland. He attended the Helsinki Conservatory and the Berklee School of Music. His professional career began in the 1980s with Finnish jazz drummer Edward Vesala. After recording three albums with Vesala, he formed Krakatau. During the 1990s he reduced the band to a trio. He recorded an album with guitarist Nicky Skopelitis that was produced by Bill Laswell.
Björkenheim has composed for the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, and the UMO Jazz Orchestra and worked as a soloist with the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra and Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra.
The public source identifies “Raoul Björkenheim” as finnish musician. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Raoul, Björkenheim and Finnish.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 22, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q2131247. VIAF identifies the subject as 61737721. The Library of Congress control number is no2002048390. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956.
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This entry incorporates text from “Raoul Björkenheim” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.