World premiere of Nixus next week!

Next week its time for the world premiere of my new orchestra piece Nixus! Can't wait to hear Joensuu City Orchestra play my music under the baton of their fantastic chief conductor Eero Lehtimäki!

Composer Cecilia Damström and conductor Eero Lehtimäki

About Nixus:

Mental disorders, also called mental illnesses, affect people in very different ways, sometimes for a short period of time and for others it is a struggle throughout their life. Altogether 970 million people around the world suffer from mental disorders, according to the World Health Organization. The most common mental disorders are depression and anxiety, which annually affect 264 million and 284 million people respectively around the world. Mental illness is nothing you can imagine before you have experienced it yourself, and even then the experience is personal, and every experience is unique and equally significant.

The piece Nixus was finished on the 10th of September (at 4 a.m.), which also happens to be “world suicide prevention day”. This coincidence feels very symbolic. Every year around 800.000 people commit suicide and the connection between mental illness and suicide is demonstrable. Despite the fact that 13% of the world population suffers from mental illness, and one out of four people are affected at some point of their life by mental or neurological disorders, it is still taboo to talk about it, and probably in part therefore many people feel very lonely with their problems.

The Latin word “nixus” can translate as effort, pressure or strain. Nixus is dedicated to anyone who suffers from mental illness in any form. In this work, I try to illustrate how thoughts jump back and forth at a rapid pace, and often form a kind of hamster wheel, a vicious circle from which it is difficult to break out. I try to describe how the thoughts often lead to very gloomy moods and anxiety, which can even become physical manifestations in the body, like palpitations and pressure in the chest.

Premiere as a video release on 26.2.2021, available until 28.2.2021.

www.joensuu.fi/musiikkitalvi