Gala concert Sa 23.4.2005 at 18
Conductor Leif Segerstam

Alexander Borodin: Polovetsian Dances from the opera Prince Igor
Markus Fagerudd: Work for mixed choir and orchestra (premiere)
Leif Segerstam: Symphony No. 111 "Sorrowmosquitocaterpillarformations... towards... because"
for orchestra and very large mixed chorus (premiere)
Jean Sibelius: Finlandia

Leif Segerstam is currently Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition he holds honorary titles with the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz in Germany. He has also held the position of Chief Conductor of the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Vienna and of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in addition to having been Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Royal Swedish Opera.

Leif Segerstam, born in 1944, is one of the most versatile and interesting musical talents from the Nordic countries. From 1953 - 1963 he studied violin, piano, composition and conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and then continued with a post-graduate course at the Juilliard School of Music in New York.

He began his conducting career with positions in the opera houses of Helsinki, Stockholm and Berlin with guest appearances which have included the Metropolitan New York, La Scala, Covent Garden, Teatro Colon, the Salzburg Festival and the Opera Houses of Cologne, Geneva, Hamburg and Munich. He is a frequent conductor at the Savolinna Festival.

The numerous recordings made by Leif Segerstam are recognised by critics and public alike as outstanding amongst modern interpretations. They include the complete symphonies of Mahler, Sibelius and Nielsen in addition to several works by contemporary composers with the Danish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Scriabin and Schnittke with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Brahms with the Staatsphilharmoinie Rheinland-Pfalz plus Reger and Alan Pettersson with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra.

Leif Segerstam has shown exceptional creativity as a composer throughout his musical career and has over 80 symphonies, 29 string quartets, 11 violin and 4 piano concerti as well as chamber and vocal music.

In 1997 he made his debuts in North America with Los Angeles Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The 2000/2001 season saw his third visit to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and his first appearance with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra led to an immediate re-invitation and a European Tour with them at the beginning of the 2001/2002 season.

Since Autumn 1997 Leif Segerstam has been Acting Professor of Conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. He was the winner of the 1999 Nordic Council Music Prize for his work "as a tireless champion of Scandinavian music."

Markus Fagerudd

Markus Fagerudd 's (b. 1961) roots, as a composer, are deeply set in performing music. The old cliché about an artist who does not know borders is true with a vengeance, when talking about Fagerudd. Nowadays, he is mostly known as a composer of art music, although heavily involved in theatre. In his youth, however, rock music was number one for him. In the beginning, Fagerudd was a keyboards player in a progressive rock band, but since acquainting himself with the music of Stravinsky, his interest towards contemporary music woke. From his early twenties, Fagerudd worked as a theatre composer and musician, first with the Wasa theatre, and then almost for a decade, with the Helsinki-based Kom theatre. In 1983, Fagerudd started his studies at the Sibelius Academy, aiming first at becoming a music teacher but in 1988 he turned to composition studies exclusively, first with Olli Kortekangas and later with Kalevi Aho. Before graduating, he spent a year in Karlsruhe, studying with Wolfgang Rihm. Fagerudd explains the move to concert music with his desire to write absolute music. However, he has not abandoned working with theatre music, although it has mostly been replaced by playing the piano in the Free Okapi, a group devoted to improvisation.

Fagerudd's output to date can be divided roughly in two periods. The landmarks of the first of them are Ingrepp I (1990) for bass clarinet and piano, Ingrepp II (1990) for solo cello, Eleven Storeys (1992) for soprano and chamber ensemble to the poem by Pentti Saarikoski, and Fresco (1994) for large chamber ensemble. This period is marked by, at times, quite strict modernism, where the seeking of new timbres has an important role. For example, in Eleven Storeys Fagerudd uses dodecaphony, but otherwise he keeps some distance to the most typical forms of post serialism. At this point, he also wrote some more music easily digestible, like the children's musical Reea Ruu (1992), which reminds of Fagerudd's practical approach to making music. In Fresco, he ties up the threads of all his influences in this colourful composition, in which he passes a final, albeit temporary, judgment on his oeuvre up to that point.

The new style opened up with the quintet Ingrepp III (1995). This epitaph has echoes of Rihm's "Neue Schönheit" style: music has new sonority; various influences and ways of expression are now more immediately perceivable. The string quartet Arco naturale (1997) especially has similar lyrical spirit as Ingrepp III. Since 1997, Fagerudd has been the composer-in-residence with the Lappeenranta and Vaasa orchestras. Iigo-Iigo (1998) for tuba and orchestra has so far been Fagerudd's greatest success in orchestral music. This epical concerto has quickly spread itself to every continent, as part of tuba competitions, for example. The outstanding work of recent years is the children's opera Gaia (2000), which was commissioned by the Finnish National Opera. In Gaia, Fagerudd blends a profound tale with exuberant humour. The inventive use of live electronics makes the opera particularly intriguing. Also Tulen valo (“The Light of Fire”, 2002) for orchestra was an immediate success and quickly received several performances. In this volatile work, Fagerudd gives way to some oriental influences. In the ten-movement suite Tämä (“This”, 1999), again to the lyrics of Saarikoski, Fagerudd shows his ability in writing choir music. The cornerstone of Markus Fagerudd's music is firm dramaturgy. His musical figures are very much alive, captivating and full of expressive power.