Leif Segerstam

Leif Segerstam was primarily known as a conductor, generally ranked among the most prominent from Finland in the latter 20th and early 21st centuries. However, he was also a composer with a massive output, making the cataloging of his music difficult. His 80th birthday in 2024 saw the premiere of his 371st symphony. Yet that seemingly enormous body of music was not quite what it seemed since he typically wrote the same piece in different scorings using aleatoric methods involving less complex and less specific notation. Still, his output contained countless orchestral and choral works, concertos, songs, string quartets, and instrumental pieces. In 2020, Segerstam led the Turku Philharmonic in a recording of Mahler's Symphony No. 4. Segerstam died on October 9, 2024.