Erik (Valdemar) Bergman was an eminent Finnish composer, conductor, music critic, and pedagogue. At Helsinki University in 1931-1933, he studied musicology with the composer and ethnomusicologist Ilmari Krohn - the founder of the discipline in Finland - and literature with the critic and folklorist Yrjo Hirn; concurrently (1931-1938) he was a student at the Helsinki Conservatory - composition with the composer-pianist Erik Furuhjelm and with Bengt Carlson, who had studied under Vincent d'Indy in Paris, and piano with Ilmari Hannikainen, one of the major Finnish pianists. This was followed by further compostion studies with Heinz Tiessen at the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik (1937-1939), and the twelve-tone technique with Wladimir Vogel in Ascona, Switzerland (1942-1943).

Returning to Helsinki, Erik Bergman was conductor of the Catholic Church Choir (1943-1950), the Akademiska Sangf6reningen at the University (1950-1969), and the Sallskapet Muntra Musikanter (1951-1978). As a music critic, he wrote for the Nya Pressen (1945-1947) and Hufvudstadsbladet (1947-1976). From 1963 to 1976 he was professor of composition at the Sibelius Academy. In 1961 he received the International Sibelius Prize of the Wihuri Foundation. In 1982 he was made a Finnish Academician. In 1994 he was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize for his opera Det sjungande tradet (The Singing Tree), which received its premiere in Helsinki on September 3, 1995.

Erik Bergman married first in 1942 Sylvelin Långholm (marriage dissolved 1955), second in 1956 Aulikki Rautawaara (marriage dissolved 1958), third in 1961 Solveig von Schoultz (died 1996), fourth Christina Indrenius-Zalewski.