Leif Segerstam

Leif Segerstam ( born March 2, 1944 in Vaasa ) is a Finnish composer and conductor.

Segerstam studied from 1952 to 1963 at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and by 1965 at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City with Louis Persinger, Hall Overton and Vincent Persichetti. By 1968, he was the bandmaster of the Finnish National Opera in Helsinki, after the Opera in Stockholm. In 1973 he worked at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and then became director of the Opera of Helsinki. From 1975 to 1982 he headed the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1977 to 1987, the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Finland from 1983 to 1986, the State Philharmonic of the Rhineland -Palatinate from 1988 to 1995, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Denmark. Since 1996 he has been chief conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and since 2012 the Philharmonic Orchestra Turku.

His repertoire encompasses the whole Scandinavian music of Gade to Lindberg and the German - Austrian early to late Romanticism and the composers of the United States. Previously created Segerstam 270 symphonies and numerous concerts. 1999 Segerstam was awarded the Music Prize of the Nordic Council.