The Premiere of the Orchestrated Version of Dagbok

Sunday 6th of April 2014. Today at 15.00 it was finally time for the final concert of the conducting course organized by Pirkanmaan Pinna, including the premiere of the orchestrated version of my song cycle Dagbok.

I had invited a lot of friends, so I was very happy that many of them could come! In the audience were my parents (all the way from Helsinki), my sister’s boyfriend and his mother (who came from Jyväskylä), three friends from church, my photographer friend Arto Jalonen (who has taken all the photos in this blog post) and one of my best friends, composer Jonne Valtonen. There were of course also other people, so all together there were about 40 people in the audience.

I was a bit nervous about presenting my music (I didn’t like speaking in front of an audience, especially not in Finnish), but the speech went quite okay. (I didn’t forget the name of any of the other conductors nor the names of the different movements of my song cycle, so that’s sort of an achievement…!) The song cycle Dagbok was conducted by three conductors. The first song “Stanna” (Stay) was conducted by Tuomas Kettunen, the second and third songs Int’ ett ord” (Not a word) and “Kallare” (Colder) by Hannes Merisaari and the last two songs “Stigar” (Paths) and “Jag vill” (I want to) by me.

Me presenting my song cycle Dagbok to the audience
at the final concert of  Pirkanmaa Pinna's conducting course 6.4.2014.
Photo © Arto Jalonen

Me conducting and my sister Jacintha singing my song cycle Dagbok to the audience
at the final concert of  Pirkanmaa Pinna's conducting course 6.4.2014.
Photo © Arto Jalonen

All the conductor students and singers who took part
at the final concert of  Pirkanmaa Pinna's conducting course 6.4.2014.
Photo © Arto Jalonen

The first performance of the orchestrated version of Dagbok went really well! I’m very happy! My sister Jacintha, who was singing, said she felt it hadn’t been a good day for her and that she thought it didn’t go so very well for her on which I replied that I disagreed completely; her singing sounded wonderful! I still haven’t her the recording of the concert, but I’m very happy!

After the concert, in the feedback session, our teacher Tuomas Hannikainen congratulated me on the piece and said he thought it was an absolutely great piece! Also Tuomas Kettunen and Hannes Merisaari thanked me and said it was fun conducting my piece. So the composer inside of me is just purring as loud as ever and I have to say I’m very proud and happy today! What a great weekend it has been!

My sister Jacintha Damström and me 6.4.2014
after the first performance of my orchestrated version of my song cycle Dagbok.
Photo © Arto Jalonen