and has guest-conducted many orchestras throughout the world including the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Toronto Symphony, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Symphony Orchestra of the State of São Paulo. From autumn 1997 to spring 2013, he was Professor of Orchestra Conducting at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. His students include Susanna Mälkki, Mikk Murdvee, Sasha Mäkilä and Markku Laakso. Compositions As a composer, he is especially known for his many symphonies, which number 344 as of April 2021. Most of his symphonies last for about 20 minutes, are formed of a single movement and are performed without a conductor. An example of this would be his 37th symphony which at its premiere featured Segerstam at the piano, leading the orchestra "in a relatively free form". This is partially inspired by Sibelius' 7th symphony. More than a hundred of Segerstam's symphonies have been performed. Many of his compositions are influenced by nature, and he is often praised for his contributions to Nordic Music. He developed a personal approach to aleatory composition through a style called "free pulsation" in which musical events interact flexibly in time, with his composition method persistent throughout his œuvre. His fifth string quartet, the 'Lemming' (1970), ushered in his new chapter of post-expressionistic writing of the 1960s. This composition approach proved to be a quick way of writing large blocks of sound (the temporal order of events being left to the performer) and permitted an exceptionally prolific output. Instead of constituting individual works, his music is more like a musical stream of consciousness (under the headings of Thoughts, Episode and Orchestral Diary Sheet). It also means that there are numerous scorings of the same piece. This method was first used in his 5th String Quartet, the "Lemming Quartet". Among Segerstam's juvenilia (1960–1969) are four string quartets from 1962–1966, and the post-impressionist ballet Pandora from 1967. The quartets are usually labeled as from his "Post-Expressionist" period. In 2015 Segerstam began work on an opera, Völvan, with a libretto by Elisabeth Wärnfeldt. Personal life He was married to the violinist (concertmaster of the Finnish RSO), with whom he had two children, Jan and Pia. Pia is a professional cellist; Jan is a businessman. After Segerstam's divorce from Hannele, he married the Helsinki Philharmonic harpist Minnaleena Jankko in 2002, with whom he had three children: Violaelina (born 1997), Selimoskar (born 1998) and Iirisilona (born 1999).