Emu Lehtinen

Ilkka Raimo Olavi “Emu” Lehtinen (3 March 1947 – 22 October 2017 ) was a record dealer in Helsinki, Finland, a founder and the chief executive officer of the record store Digelius Music. According to Helsingin Sanomat, Lehtinen was “a local guru for people who would be curious to listen to music irrespective of genres, and a person with whose help customers would find wonderful new experiences starting from clean slate.” According to another Helsinki newspaper, Hufvudstadsbladet, Lehtinen was “a living legend in Finnish music circles”.

Early life Lehtinen was born in Lappeenranta, and the family moved to Helsinki when Lehtinen was three months old.

Lehtinen's father was an architect, who worked for the architectural department of the Kulutusosuuskuntien keskusliitto (KK), which was part of a well known consumers' co-operative called the E-liike, while his mother was a housewife, who took care of the family's six children. KK bought the Ströms manor and founded an institute called Osuuskauppakoulu there, and at that juncture 10 of their workers' families moved there in 1954. They lived at the manor for 10 years, until KK wanted to have the manor for its own functions.

Birdwatching took Emu abroad a number of times, most often to India, which he visited 18 times. Goa was his favourite place there. One trip took him to Namibia, to Walvis Bay and Kavango. He had seen about 300–400 species of birds in Finland, and around 2000 in the whole world, of which some 830 in India.

Death Emu died in October 2017, after having been ill for half a week. His last day at work in Digelius Music was Wednesday, 18 October 2017. The following day he went into a hospital due to dyspnoea, and on Friday he was told he had leukemia. He died in Helsinki early on Sunday morning.

A jazz concert in Lehtinen's memory was held at Korjaamo in Helsinki on 11 December 2017.