Swedish Wind Ensemble and Stockholm

This week (26-30th of May) I have spent in Stockholm rehearsing with Swedish Wind Ensemble, who premiered my piece ”Paradiso” on Friday 29th of May! It has been an absolutely fantastic week!

I stayed the week in the house of my friend, and it was really nice! Here is a pic of me from outside here house.

At my friends place in Stockholm. Photo © Damström

I flew in on Tuesday 26th of May, rehearsals were on Wednesday and Thursday 10-14:50 o’clock, on Friday we had a dress rehearsal 15-17 o’clock and on Friday evening we had the concert at 19 o’clock at Musikaliska on Nybrokajen 11 in Stockholm.

Having lunch with our orchestration teacher Bjön-Tryggve Johansson
and my class mate Alfred Jimenez from Malmö Academy of Music.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

Having lunch day 2 with composers Olle Sundström
from Gothenburg Academy of Music and Alfred Jimenez
from Malmö Academy of music. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Swedish Wind Ensemble is a wind orchestra with both woodwinds and brass instruments as well as three percussionists. All of us students that were elected for this project were asked to write a 4 minute piece using the whole orchestra (and no particular solo instrument). It was very interesting how different all the pieces were in the concert! It was there fore also interesting to listen to the rehearsals of the pieces by the other composers.

My piece “Paradiso” is a palindrome, so from the middle everything comes again back to front (and kind of “up side down”, so that what was played in the beginning by the highest instrument the piccolo, is played at the end by the lowest instrument the tuba). But after the middle (when the pieces gets mirrored) I had at the beginning some problems with the volume balance, so I had to make some small change in dynamics for the woodwinds and generally ask the brass to play quieter. With this small adjustment the piece worked really well!

Swedish Wind Ensemble rehearsing under the lead of Michael Bartosch.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

The programme of the concert on the 29th of May was:

Jacob Mühlrad | Tekiah

Cecilia Damström | Paradiso op.36

Alfred Jimenez | Two Small but Serious Satires (2015)

Olle Sundström | Punk Duet (2015)
Joseph Howard | Movement (2015)
Felix Axemo | Kårchefen Åstrand
Rosanna Gunnarsson | Dogtown part II
Frej Wedlund | andas, upphör
Mika Pohjola | Wedding March
Jakob Svartengren | 150123

There were so many nice pieces, but among my favourites I must mention Mühlrad’s Tekiah, Wedlund’s andas, upphör and Howard’s Movement.

Presenting my piece Paradiso for the audience at Musikaliska,
Stockholm, 29th of May 2015.
Photo by Joseph Howard

Unfortunately there wasn’t very much audience in the concert, about 50 people, which sadly is quite usual at contemporary music concerts. But my former colleague from work (at sea) and his girlfriend came to the concert, which made me very happy!

After the concert we all went to the spring party of the Stockholm Royal Academy of Music. They had a live band called Funk Attack playing funk and soul, and they were absolutely extraordinary! The lead singer Christopher Lennerbrant had a great voice, sang in perfect pitch and had a great stage charisma and the backup singer/second lead singer Maja Keuc , who sung one solo song, sounded like Beyoncé and was also wonderful on stage! It was incredible! And the band played really well together, so it was wonderful to listen to!

The band Funk Attack with Christopher Lennerbrant and Maja Keuc
playing a gig 29th of May 2015 at the Stockholm Royal Academy of Music.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

The band Funck Attack playing a gig 29th of May 2015
at the Stockholm Royal Academy of Music.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

On Saturday 30th of May I had lunch buffet with my new English friend and composer Joseph Howard and then took a afternoon train back to Malmö. The train ride was once again a perfect place to finish of some adjustments to ready pieces before sending them off to some application deadlines.

Stockholm was wonderful, but now I have to re-focus on composition, because only one week of this term left and there's still lot’s of work to get done!

Me on a sunny day in Stockholm after rehearsals with Swedish Wind Ensemble.
Photo © Damström

Photos from Ystad

Sunday the 17th of May I decided to visit Ystad, a small little town in Southern Sweden where people usually go for vacation. It's an old town and a very beautiful place, but because pictures tell more than words, here are 25 pictures I took in Ystad. (I recommend that you click on one of the pictures for seeing them on the whole screen instead of these small versions beneath.)

Streets of Ystad. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Detail on a house. Photo © Cecilia Damström

A front door. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Cherry blossom. Photo © Cecilia Damström

A street in Ystad. Photo © Cecilia Damström

The Theatre of Ystad. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Photo © Cecilia Damström

A window in Ystad. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Streets are not quite straight in this town... Photo © Cecilia Damström

Nor are the windows... Photo © Cecilia Damström

A park in Ystad. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Opening times for a cafeteria in Ystad.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

Spring in Ystad. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Ystad. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Inside the main church. Photo © Cecilia Damström

One of the oldest houses in the city.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

The monastery of Ystad.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

The monastery of Ystad.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

A small street...
Photo © Cecilia Damström

A lovely café that unfortunately was closed. Photo © Cecilia Damström

A selfie on the main shopping street.

Photo © Cecilia Damström

It began to rain... Photo © Cecilia Damström

The trainstation of Ystad. Photo © Cecilia Damström

The view from the train window.
Almost like Mark Rothko's paintings.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

Tongeneration Concert in Lund

Last week’s Sunday, on the 10th of May, we from Tongeneration, the composers of Malmö Academy of Music, had a concert at Lund’s Museum of Public Art. The concert was part of the Lund Biennale, a two day event of music in Lund, organized by Odeum.

The programme was:

1. Francesco Del Nero - Sc'ri (world premiere)

2. Jonatan Sersam - Medusa (world premiere)

3. David Riebe - Escaliers Mécaniques

4. Cecilia Damström - Piano Delirium Op.9 (Swedish premiere)

5. Jonatan Sersam - Röster (world premiere)

6. Ismael Palacio - Open space

7. Alfred Jimenez - Two excerpt teasers from his opera Clownen Jac (world premiere)

Musicians:

Albert Van Pham - Piano (2)

Niklas Sjölund - Piano (1)

Jonas Helander - Tenor (7)

Elisabeth Ekberg - soprano (7)

Jonatan Sersam - Piano (1, 7)

Cecilia Damström - Piano (4)
Ismael Palacio, Francesco Del Nero and Jonatan Sersam are the "Non-Existing Trio" (Prepared piano and amplified harmonica) (7)

Niklas Sjölund and Jonatan Sersam playing
Francesco del Nero's piece Sc´ri. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Albert Van Pham playing the world premiere of
Jonatan Sersam's piece Medusa.Photo © Cecilia Damström 

Cecilia Damström playing the Swedish premiere
of her own piece Piano Delirium. Photo by Niklas Sjölund

Open space by Ismael Palacio​. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Tongeneration at the Lund Biennale, on Sunday the 10th of May
in the Museum of Public Art and Sketches.
Photo © Cecilia Damström 

A taster from Alfred Jimenez opera "Clownen Jac".
Photo © Cecilia Damström

A taster from Alfred Jimenez opera "Clownen Jac". 
Photo © Cecilia Damström

I had planned that my song cycle would have had its Swedish premiere, but all my singer friends were too busy and my sister had a slight flu and couldn’t either sing, so I decided instead to give my solo piano piece Piano Delirium (from 2010) a Swedish premiere, and played it my self in the concert. I was very happy with how it went; I think I have maybe never played it so well in a concert before!

The concert had two more piano pieces, two pieces for tape, a trio (Open space) and two arias from Alfred Jimenez opera. There were about 30 people at the concert, which is about an average for a contemporary music concert. Everyone was happy with the concert, both we composers and musicians as well as organizers, and even the sun was shining in Lund!

All composers and performers on stage!
Tongeneration at the Lund Biennale, on Sunday the 10th of May
in the Museum of Public Art and Sketches.

Examples of Brass Music

Tuesday 12th of May. Wrote yesterday  about 1 minute of music for my brass ensemble piece "Sirens". Now feeling stuck, so I’m listening to inspirational pieces, mainly brass music. Here is a list of what I’m listening to (recommendations by teachers and friends), hope you enjoy it as well!

Rautavaara: A Requiem in our time

Gunther Schuller: Symphony for Brass and Percussion Op.16

Hindemith: Music for Brass and Strings Op.50 Movements I & II

Hindemith: Music for Brass and Strings Op.50 Movements III & IV

Stravinsky: Ebony Concert

Stravinsky: Symphony for Wind Instruments

Takemitsu: Garden Rain

''

Moritz Eggert: Morphing

Moritz Eggert: in the box



Anders Hillborg: Brass Quintet

Lutoslawski: Mini Overture

Louis Andiressen: Hoketus

Louis Andriessen: Workers Union

Berio: Call

Varèse: Intégrales

Varèse: Ionisation

Planning a New Composition for BIBA

Monday the 11th of May 2015 and at the moment I’m working on a commission for Blekinge International Brass Academy 2015, where I will be composer in residence together with two other composers from Malmö Academy of Music. I’m writing for an ensemble of 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 bass trombone, 1 French horn and 1 tuba.

Last week I was in Würzburg in Germany, and outside the window where I lived the Red Cross had a big station of ambulances. At one point several ambulances left the station at the same time, and I must say that the quarters and small thirds at different pitches ringing at the same time where very beautiful. So I decided to write a piece integrating quarters and small thirds at different pitches as a main element in my new piece. It’s a bit ironic I notice now, because the festivals name is shortened BIBA and that is more or less the sound with which people imitate ambulances and fire trucks, “bii-baaa-bii-baa”!

I also think the Doppler Effect is very fascinating, that is to say the apparent change in the frequency of a wave cased by a relative motion between the source of the wave and the observer, so I’m planning on integrating “faked” Doppler Effects as well.

A third thing I think is super cool with brass instruments are the very low notes, and also so called pedal tones on trombones, French horn and tuba. They can sound like loud foghorns, exciting!

I’m also planning on splitting up the trumpets and the trombones on each side of the ensemble, so that the stereo effect and moving sensation of the Doppler Effect will be a bit more prominent.

All of this I’m writing without having written a note yet, so let’s see how I will succeed with actually realizing all my ideas into music! Deadline 10.6, hey ho let's go!

Back to Blogging!

Hello again dear blog readers! It’s been a long break, but now I’m back, and better late than never! The main reason is for that I haven’t had time to write this blog is because I have tried to start sleeping again normal hours, which I didn’t do a year ago, when I was writing most actively. But I have actually got quite some few texts ”in store”, so over the next weeks there might come both text from last summer as well as what’s going on now! Be prepared!

I moved to Malmö last August and am currently studying my masters in composition at Malmö Academy of Music with Luca Francesconi and Staffan Storm as my compositions teachers and Kent Olofsson in electroacoustic composition. I share a flat with two Finnish girls and I really enjoy my life in Malmö! Many people have asked me what it’s like living in Sweden and if there are big differences between Finland and Sweden, so there will for sure be blog posts coming up about life in Sweden versus Finland.

Spring is crazy busy as always; I have finished a four minute piece for windband, that will be premiered on the 29th of May in Stockholm, a piece for piano solo that will be premiered on the 20th of May in Malmö (and on the 25th of May in Helsinki) and currently I’m writing a piece for flute and electronics that will be premiered on the 17th of May in Malmö. Still coming up (this spring) is a piece for flute and accordion for the Sysmä Suvisoitto-festival, a 10 min piece for brass ensemble for Blekinge International Brass Academy, a cello-sonata and half a chamber opera that will be premiered in Norway in the end of August this year! So please wish me luck in keeping all these deadlines!

But this week it’s Easter and I’m flying home to Finland for a week, partly because I’m actually currently also enrolled in Tampere University of Applied Sciences and am studying piano with Risto-Matti Marin, so I will have a two piano lessons, and partly because my string quartet “Via Crucis” will be premiered on Good Friday by the Felis-quartet in Siuntio church at 6 PM! Every one is warmly welcome to the premiere!

ISAM 2014 Day 2

Saturday July 26th 2014. Only two more days left of being 25, so sad. Yep, I have already come to the age when it’s not anymore fun to grow older, all “youth reductions” (on trains and airplanes) end on Monday, so sad.

My room at ISAM 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

The view from my window at ISAM 2014.
In the garden you see on this pic they grow the sallad we ate every day!
Photo © Cecilia Damström

Had breakfast with Evan Pensis, Sam Kinsey and Geoffrey Conquer and later also Spencer Lyons and Andrey Stolyarov joined our table. At 9.15 all composer met up and we went to Ofers work room, the same room I have been composing in for the past days. There all student’s presented them selves and some work they had done. The session lasted until 12.45 and then we headed of for lunch, all very hungry by this time.

After lunch I went back to Ofer’s room (which was free) and composed until coffee time at 14.30. After coffee I practised a bit piano and composed until lunch, at 18.00 and managed to get the first movement ready of my “Dorfmann trio”. All composers are encouraged to participate in a internal ISAM composition competition. This year the instruments you can chose from (using 1-4 instruments in total) are saxophone, piano, contra bass and percussion. More over we have been given the cryptogram of musicologist and ISAM founder Joseph Dorfman for inspiration, which is a note transcription of his name: C (do), D (re), F, E (mi), A. I am writing for saxophone, contrabass and percussion (marimba and bass drum). I am going to write a three movement piece, and I actually managed more or less to finish the first movement before dinner, 2,30 minutes! Not completely happy with it yet but I can get back to it later.

After dinner I didn’t manage to get anything done.  I was planning on going to the pub, but finally decided not to go because I was too tired and instead I went to bed early (at 23 o’clock).