Portrait of Arvo Pärt

Birthday profile

Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt, Estonian composer

Born
September 11, 1935
Age in 2026
91
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1935

About Arvo Pärt

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian composer of contemporary classical music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs tintinnabuli, a compositional technique he invented. Pärt's music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. His most performed works include Fratres (1977), Spiegel im Spiegel (1978), and Für Alina (1976). From 2011 to 2018, and again in 2022 and 2025, Pärt was the most performed living composer in the world. The Arvo Pärt Centre, in Laulasmaa, was opened to the public in 2018. Tikhon Khrennikov criticized Pärt in 1962 for employing serialism in Nekrolog (1960), the first 12-tone music written in Estonia, which exhibited his "susceptibility to foreign influences".

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Arvo Pärt timeline

  1. Tikhon Khrennikov criticized Pärt in 1962 for employing serialism in Nekrolog (1960), the first 12-tone music written in Estonia, which exhibited his "susceptibility to foreign influences".
  2. From 2011 to 2018, and again in 2022 and 2025, Pärt was the most performed living composer in the world.
  3. The Arvo Pärt Centre, in Laulasmaa, was opened to the public in 2018.

The world when Arvo Pärt was born

Arvo Pärt was born in 1935. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1935

  • #1 song"Cheek to Cheek" – Fred Astaire
  • Top movieMutiny on the Bounty
  • Best-selling bookGreen Light - Lloyd C. Douglas

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJesse Owens sets 3 world records in 45 minutes at Big Ten meet
  • Top headlineSocial Security Act signed into law by FDR
  • Technology milestoneRadar first demonstrated
  • Defining fadMonopoly officially released by Parker Brothers
  • Notable inventionBeer in cans
  • World population2.23 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championDetroit Tigers (World Series)
  • U.S. population127.3M

1935 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Arvo Pärt's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19352026
Gas$0.19$3.45/gal
Average home$5,000$435,000
Average income$2,700$67,500
Minimum wage$0.25$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population127.3M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.