Martin Segerstråle
Musical director, choral conductor, pianist and composer
Studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the Sibelius Academy.
Martin was recently MD for the Turku Swedish Theatre's production of the musical comedy Something Rotten! that opened in September 2023. He has also recently been assistant musical director and keys1 on the Helsinki Swedish Theatre's production of Mary Poppins and worked at the Finnish National Opera as répétiteur in 2022-2023. He had been cover conductor and keys1 for the FNO production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera and has also MD'd other productions there.
Martin conducted the world premiere of the musical 20 Sekunder in the Schauman Hall in Jakobstad, Finland in March 2022. He was previously MD for the Finnish premiere of the Disney musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame, running at the Tampere Theatre during the 2019-2020 season, sadly cut short by the coronavirus pandemic. Martin has also been the MD on Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats in Tampere.
Martin teaches musical theatre history, ensemble singing and interpretation at the Lärkkulla Musical educational programme in Karis, Finland and has also led musical theatre ensemble singing workshops, eg at the Nordklang choral festival.
Martin played the piano and contributed arrangements to the album Folkton with soprano Therese Karlsson in 2017, available on iTunes and Spotify, and has contributed to several albums with Finnish choirs.
Martin has worked on musical theatre projects in his native Finland and also in the UK. He has conducted several choirs in Finland and is in frequent demand as MD, pianist and accompanist. He has often won praise for the musicality of his interpretations. Martin has composed a number of works for choir and also orchestral pieces and chamber music.
Martin is a recepient of the Finlands Svenska Sång- och Musikförbund biannual award for promising young conductors. He has taken part in conducting master classes with conductors such as Jorma Panula, Guy Reibel and Patrick Russill and studied chamber music with John Storgårds and Martti Rautio.
In the spring of 2015, Martin was awarded the Svenska Kulturfonden annual regional culture prize for outstanding contributions to the music life of Finland. In the prize statement, his musical versatility was referred to as "unique".
Photo © Mikael Liikanen