Boris Sirpo established the Viipuri Music School in 1918 and directed it until the outbreak of the Talvisota, or Winter War in 1939. (Editor's note: As a peace settlement to the Soviet invasion, Russia annexed Viipuri and a large section of the Finnish province of Karelia, where it remains today as a relic of Russian Expansionism.) Sirpo, earlier known as Sirob, was a Russian-born man with a strong personality and an exceedingly demanding pedagogue. The school was known throughout Finland, and produced a chamber orchestra which Sirpo took o tour in continental Europe in 1932, with the renowned violinist Bronislaw Huberman as soloist. Sirpo's eminent student Heimo Haitto moved with him to the American city Portland (Oregon) in 1939. Just previous to the war the 14 year old Haitto had won an international violin competition in London. He toured extensively in Finland and Scandinavia for Finnish war relief and continued to do so in the United States.
In 1940 the Viipuri Music School relocated in Lahti, a city near Helsinki, and staff member and well-known teacher Felix Krohn was appointed director. In 1964 Sirpo was re-appointed as leader of the school, but his health condition would not allow him to accept back his former position. Besides Haitto, pianists Orest Bodalew and Cyril Szalkiewicz were products of the Viipuri School. Bodalew became director of the piano department in the Lahti school. Szalkiewicz, as a youngster, a member of the Sirpo "family", was the other soloist in the 1932 orchestra trip in Europe. He became a coach and pianist for the Finnish National Opera and was also a concert pianist. He was the first to record the complete piano compositions of Sibelius. Earlier musicians who got their starts in Viipuri were the composer Erkki Melartin and his 6 year old violin student Martti Turunen. The latter became famous as a choral conductor, and also as a marksman known in some quarters by his nickname equivalent of "Bullseye" Turunen.
