Last week my 20 minute orchestra suite, my own “Rite of Spring” got its Finnish Premiere by the fantastic Tampere Philharmonic and Olari Elts in my beloved Tampere, where I studied and lived for almost a decade! Once again I have needed a whole week to recover from this wonderful and overwhelming experience. So happy I got to share the concert with so many friends and family!
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| Cecilia Damström with Tampere Philharmonic and Olari Elts. Photo by Maarit Kytöharju for Tampere Biennale 2024. |
Wasteland is a piece composed about how the recycling industry works a.k.a doesn’t work well enough yet. In this piece we follow the recycling process of three pieces of clothing from usage, to tossing, sorting, burning and handling of the ashes (and green washing). Obviously, in a piece about recycling I am recycling different pieces of music, representing a piece of clothing each, everything from Für Elise to the Magic Flute and from Catholic Mass Chant to Finnish pop artist Maija Vilkkumaa’s “Ei”.
So happy that the concert was reviewed by three different critics! As my aim is to make people think and feel through my music, I found the review by Aamulehti quite intriguing: It is simultaneously easily approachable and irritating music.
Jari Kallio wrote for Adventures in Music following:
“The opening movement, Wear, comes off as hyperactive Academic Festival Overture, as Damström presents us with a hectic party montage, featuring orchestral costume changes at increasing speed. In the course of the two ensuing movements, Toss and Sort, used clothes are transferred to large sorting halls via an Andante orchestral transportation. At the end of the ride, the ensemble pans out with piled layers of repetition, mounting to vast tutti canvases and gazing upon the sheer mass of waste. Furioso furnaces are lit in Burn, conjuring up symphonic auto-da-fe par excellence. In the concluding Flow the orchestra sails down the river of greenwashing, rendering its final parody before vanishing beyond the horizon.
Conceived with meme-like wittiness and inventive instrumental craft, Wasteland is both fun and serious, its musical designs being both accessible and thought-provoking, without succumbing to fast fashion takes on the Berio Sinfonia (1968-69). Performed with dedication and zeal by the Tampere Philharmonic under Elts, Wasteland was given a powerhouse Finnish premiere.”
If you want to make up your own opinion, the concert is available world wide for an other three weeks (until the 12th of May) on the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s website Yle Areena. My Wasteland begins at 17 min, although I warmly recommend listening to the whole concert including music by Kalevi Aho, a world premiere by Eetu Lehtonen and a fantastic virtuoso Piia Komsi singing music by Unsuk Chin!
