Barbara Christina Elisabeth Helsingius-Koski, née Helsingius (27 September 1937 – 9 March 2017), was a Swedish-speaking Finnish olympic fencer, singer and poet.

She participated at the 1960 Summer Olympics. Trained as a gym teacher, she took her masters in pedagogy at Stanford University (1963). Interested in American art and folk music, she began to record, and her first release, (1966) was a collection of American folk songs, translated to Finnish. She became well-known internationally, and is a member of Visens venner in Norway, of Visans Vänner in Helsinki and Yrkestrubadurernas Forening in Sweden, part of the Svenska Visakademien (1999, its only Finn) and the joint Nordic cultural organisation NordVisa. From 1969-1975, she lived in Oslo with her husband, Hank Koski, a diplomat at the USA's embassy. Her family now live in Espoo.

She died after a long illness on 9 March 2017, aged 79.


After beginning to write her own material, Barbara soon worked in all the Nordic countries. She has also enjoyed successful concert tours Barbara Helsingius Singing The Songs Finland Sings and gigs in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, Ireland, Israel, Spain, Japan, Germany and Latvia. She has appeared countless times on Nordic TV and likes to emphasize the importance of Nordic cooperation. She finds it important to reach across all borders and, with the help of the timeless ballad, build bridges with her music, particularly through translations of her own songs and poems to and from Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and English.

Barbara has recorded twelve albums with her own and Finnish songs in Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian and English. Her songs and lyrics can also be found on recordings by other artists. And, she has published two song books: Vill du visor min vän?and Kanske en visa (Schildts) and a booklet with her translations of songs based on poems by the great Eino Leino. She has been honored as a singersongwriter and cultural personality as well as for her work on behalf of Nordic music with the Alf Hambe and Nils Ferlin Awards in Sweden, the Finnish-Norwegian Cultural Foundation prize, the NordVisa? statuette, and in Finland, the Pro Cultura Esbo. She is on the board of several music and cultural organizations, is an honorary member of Women and Music, and is a member of Svenska Visakademin (Swedish academy of songs). She has edited a book called Songs Finland Sings(Warner/Chappel Music, Finland) and made a 2-CD collection of 47 popular Finnish songs from the book by the same name.

Barbara is married to Hank Koski, an American of Finnish descent. They have two daughters, Marika and Karina, and Siberian huskies. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.