Finnish conductor and composer Leif Segerstam has died aged 80, Finnish media reported today. After studies in violin, piano, composition and conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki 1952-63 he continued with post-graduate studies at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. His initial career as a conductor started with positions in the opera houses of Helsinki, Stockholm, and West Berlin, and guest appearances included the Met, La Scala, Covent Garden, Teatro Colon and the opera houses of Cologne, Hamburg and Munich, Geneva and the Salzburg Festival.
In 1975-82 Segerstam was chief conductor of the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna and 1977-87 of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Helsinki. As GMD of Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz Segerstam served 1983-89. In December 1988 he was appointed chief conductor of the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra till 1995 when he started as chief conductor of the Royal Opera of Stockholm. From 1995 to 2007 Leif Segerstam was Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. His period as a chief conductor of Turku Philharmonic Orchestra started in 2012 and ended in May 2019. From autumn 1997 until the spring of 2013 Leif Segerstam was Acting Professor of Conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.
Leif Segerstam has shown exceptional creativity as a composer throughout his musical career and has written 370 symphonies, string quartets, violin and piano concerti alongside chamber and vocal music.
Segerstam was known for his vibrant personality and temperamental, high-energy performances, his long white hair and beard giving him an special air of as he guided musicians through a score. In 2019 he was awarded an ICMA Prize in Lucerne, where he conducted at the ICMA Gala with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester.
