Leif Segerstam

Leif Segerstam is primarily referred to as a conductor, generally placed being among the most prominent from Finland within the second option twentieth and early 20 1st centuries. But he’s also a composer with an enormous output, producing the cataloging of his music challenging. For example, by summer season 2002, he previously created 81 symphonies, 18 of these having been made up or completed for the reason that yr alone. However that seemingly tremendous body of music isn’t quite what it appears, since he typically writes exactly the same piece in various scorings, using aleatoric strategies concerning less-complex and less-specific notation. Still, his result consists of countless orchestral and choral functions, concertos, tracks, string quartets, and instrumental items. Segerstam moved into the Sibelius Academy of Music in Helsinki in his mid-teens, where he researched violin with Liisa Siikonen and performing with Jussi Jalas. Segerstam was also a fantastic pianist after that and won 1st prize within the 1962 Maj Lind Piano Competition, kept with the Sibelius Academy. The next calendar year, he graduated with levels both in violin and performing and provided his first main concert being a violinist. At that time, he had currently written his first compositions, including the short 1960 orchestral function A Star (Nils-Eric Fougstedt in Memoriam) and Three Music for soprano and piano (1960-1961). Pursuing Segerstam’s graduation, he enrolled on the Juilliard College of Music, where he examined violin with Louis Persinger, performing with Jean Morel, and structure with Vincent Persichetti and Hall Overton. In 1965, he received his initial important performing appointment towards the Finnish Country wide Opera as movie director for the 1973-1974 period. Segerstam kept two other performing content at opera homes in Scandinavia and Germany, on the Royal Opera in Stockholm from 1968 to 1972, with the Deutsche Oper in Berlin for an individual period (1972-1973). Segerstam proved many compositions of these early performing years, including many string quartets (the Fifth, subtitled “Lemming,” was a stylistically pivotal function in his usage of aleatory strategies) as well as the melody collection Tre plus eller fyra NNNUUUU-R, for mezzo soprano and piano, on text messages by Gunnar Björling. Segerstam successively had taken three performing content with second-tier Western european orchestras in the time from 1977 to 1985 (the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Rhineland-Pfalz Condition Philharmonic Orchestra). He was appointed key conductor from the Danish Country wide Radio Symphony Orchestra in 1989, a post that could enable him to record not merely many classics within the repertory and contemporary functions, but also a few of his very own. For labels BIS, Ondine, and Finlandia, he proved shows of his symphonies No. 9, No. 11, No. 13, No. 14, No. 16, No. 17, no. 18, and violin concertos, Op. 33 and 99, along with his wife Hannele Segerstam as soloist. Upon his departure in the DNRSO in 1995, he recognized the positioning of key conductor for the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra which same calendar year, also came back to Stockholm’s Royal Opera, once again as music movie director. Segerstam still kept both of these positions in the brand new century. On the Royal Opera Home, Segerstam has executed an array of functions. In 2002, for instance, he led shows of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, and Janácek’s The Makropulos Affair.