Leif Segerstam celebrates 70th anniversary in March
The extraordinarily prolific composer and distinguished conductor Leif Segerstam will celebrate his 70th anniversary on 2 March 2014.
The birthday will be celebrated with concerts in both Sweden and Finland. Malmö Opera in Sweden will honour its chief conductor with a special orchestral concert on the actual date, 2 March. The concert’s programme includes music by Johannes Brahms, Henri Dutilleux and Segerstam himself. The conductor’s daughter Pia Segerstam will be the soloist in the Dutilleux Cello concerto “Tout un monde lointain”. The Segerstam symphony to be premiered on his birthday is No. 261, “Maasdamer Mice and Mars Lander Men”.
In Finland, Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra will premiere Segerstam’s Symphony No. 256, “Listening to and looking at Tales & Visions in the opened souls of the STONES in Finnish SMOKESAUNA”, on 14 March.
An intensive three-day celebration by Pori Sinfonietta will take place in Pori and Tampere from 20 to 22 March. The main concerts of the 70th anniversary happening, titled “Interplanetary surfer 70 years” will feature conductor-violinist Jan Söderblom and pianist Emil Holmström as soloists. The mini festival ends on 22 March with a “Leif Club”, a chamber music concert in Pori. The club will feature also Segerstam’s new chamber music work Sofia’s dream for violin and piano.
As a composer, Segerstam is best known for his vast cycle of symphonies. To date, he has finished 268 symphonies, and several new are yet in progress. The next premiere will take place in Kemi, Finland on 25 February with the Symphony No. 258, and many more are scheduled for later in 2014: Symphony No. 262 will be premiered in Aarhus, Denmark, on 27 March; No. 259 in Kuopio, Finland on 8 May; and No. 268 in Paris, France on 30 October.