Leif Segerstam (Conductor)
Leif Segerstam is an award-winning conductor, composer, violinist and pianist
with a prominent international career. He received diplomas from the Sibelius
Academy in violin and conducting. He won the Maj Lind Piano Competition in 1962
and gave his first violin recital in 1963. He rounded off his studies at the
Juilliard School in New York, where he was awarded a conducting diploma in
1964.
In 2012 Segerstam was engaged as the Principal Conductor of the Turku
Philharmonic Orchestra, Finland’s oldest symphony orchestra, celebrating its
225th anniversary in 2015. His extensive conducting career includes engagements
as Principal Conductor and Music Director of the Royal Opera in Stockholm,
Director of the Finnish National Opera, Principal Conductor of the Austrian
Radio Symphony Orchestra and of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was
Music Director of the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and Principal Conductor
of the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra and of the Helsinki Philharmonic
Orchestra, where he currently holds the position of Emeritus Principal
Conductor.
From autumn 1997 to spring 2013, Leif Segerstam was Professor of Orchestra
Conducting at the Sibelius Academy. He was the winner of the 1999 Nordic Council
Music Prize for his work “as a tireless champion of Scandinavian music” and the
Swedish Cultural Foundation’s Prize for Music in 2003. In 2004 Leif Segerstam
was awarded the annual Finnish State Prize for Music and in 2005 the highly
esteemed Sibelius Medal. He has gained wide acclaim due to his numerous
recordings with different orchestras.
While pursuing his conducting career, Segerstam has also produced an
extensive oeuvre as a composer. His biography includes two hundred and
eighty-five symphonies, violin concerti, piano concerti and numerous chamber
music and vocal pieces.
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