LEIF SEGERSTAM
BIOGRAPHY
Leif Segerstam (b. 1944) is one of Finland's most internationally known conductors and a versatile and prolific "tone picker", as he calls himself. Segerstam's extensive composition output includes, among other things, more than 310 symphonies, violin concertos, piano concertos, and numerous other instrumental concertos, as well as plenty of chamber and vocal music. The multi-instrumentalist, dubbed "Santa's brother" and "Väinämösik" too, has held top positions in the music industry both in Finland and abroad.
Segerstam studied piano and violin and orchestra conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. In 1962, Segerstam won the Maj Lind piano competition and debuted as a violinist. The following year, the doors of the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York opened for him, where he continued his orchestra conducting studies and graduated as a conductor in 1965.
During his decades-long career, Segerstam has worked in opera houses around the world. He has been seen as a conductor e.g. At the Finnish National Opera, Stockholm Royal Opera, Berlin Deutsche Oper, Vienna State Opera, Copenhagen Royal Opera and Malmö Opera.
He has made managerial visits, e.g. To the Metropolitan, Covent Garden, La Scala and the opera houses of Munich, Hamburg and Cologne, the Salzburg Music Festival and the Savonlinna Opera Festival. Segerstam has also performed in Tampere several times; he was one of the Tampere Opera's first visiting conductors in 1963.
Segerstam has achieved a wide international reputation with the numerous recordings of the orchestras he leads. In the years 1975–1982, Segerstam was the chief conductor of the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra and 1977–1987 the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and 1983–1989 the Generalmusikdirektor of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Philharmonic, later the lifetime "Ehren Gastdirigent" of the orchestra. Segerstam was chief conductor of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1988 to 1995 and is now the orchestra's honorary conductor. In the years 1995–2007 he was the chief conductor of the Helsinki City Orchestra and in the years 2012–2019 he was the chief conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra.
Segerstam's impressive career has been rewarded with several recognitions. The Nordic Music Council awarded Segerstam the 1999 Nordic Council Music Award for his merits as a tireless promoter of Nordic music. In the spring of 2003, Segerstam received the Svenska Kulturfonden award in recognition of his meritorious work in the field of music. He was awarded the State Prize for Composition in 2004 and the Sibelius Medal in autumn 2005. In 2014, the President of the Republic awarded Segerstam the title of professor.