Summer 2015

”So what are you doing this summer?” I get this question quite frequently, so I decided to write about what’s happening this summer in my life!

May
2-9.5 visiting Würzburg
Visited my friend Janne Valkeajoki in Würzburg for discussing and working on his commissioned piece Groove, which will be premiered in Sysmän Suvisoitto 2015.

10.5 Concert in Lund with Ton Generation. Composition class of Malmö made a concert, and I gave my piano solo piece Piano Delirium it’s Swedish premiere. (More about the concert: click here)

20.5 Concert in Malmö Academy of Music, and the pianist Linn Bertland gave my piano solo suite Characters its world premiere.

21.5-26.5 in Finland:

21.5 arrived at 14:45 in Finland, got picked up so I managed to go home and in the evening I went to the Finish Cultural Foundation Annual Celebration in Siuntio

22.5 piano lesson in Helsinki with Risto-Matti Marin

25.5 Played the Finnish premiere of my piano piece  "Characters" at 6 PM. in the Korvat Auki concert at the Aino Ackté Hall

26.5 Flight to Stockholm at 16 o'clock.

26-30.5 Stockholm

27-28.5 Rehearsals with the Swedish Wind Ensemble

29.5 Concert with Swedish Wind Ensemble, premiere of my wind orchestra piece Paradiso, conducted by Michael Bartosch. (More about the concert: click here)

30.5 Travelling by train back to Malmö

June

31.5-17.6 in Malmö

4.6 Playing the second movement of Hummel’s Piano concerto and my piece Characters at the Horn class concert in Malmö Academy of Music
5.6 The Spring Party of Malmö Academy of Music
7.6 To hospital due to acute infection, I however felt fine after I got antibiotics
8.6 deadline for first songs of the opera “Schnitzler’s Dreams” (composing all night and morning)

9-12.6 Cleaning out the flat and moving most of my stuff (to a friend’s attick) although I took six bags with me.

12.6. Moving out
12-15.6 composing Sirens for brass ensemble, premiere at Blekinge International Brass Academy

17.6 By train to Stockholm, and by ferry back to Finland, with 6 bags and a total of 91 kg!

17-21.6 in Helsinki

Composing night and day my part of the collaborative opera Schnitzler’s Dreams for Fredrikstad, Norway.

21.6 flight to Copenhagen, stayed the night at a friend in Malmö
22-28.6 Karlskrona, BlekingeInternational Brass Academy

Composer in residence the whole week, rehearsals 24-26.6

26.6 Premiere of my new piece Sirens for brass ensemble

28-30.6 Staying at my friends place in Malmö while composing the opera
29.6 meeting with composer JonatanSersam and Martin Dahlin-Volsing and planning the contemporary music festival Conncet 2015 taking place 13-22.11.2015 in Malmö.
30.6 Flight back to Helsinki

July
30.6-23.7 Finland
Composing opera, deadline 3.7

2.7-8.7 Sysmän Suvisoitto
3.7 Sent off 70% of my part of the opera, the other 30% must still wait…

4.7 Premiere of my flute & accordion piece by Janne Valkeajoki and Jacintha Damström

8-13.7 composing my string orchestra piece (premiere 22.8) at my parents summer house.
13-20.7   I will then compose the last 30% (15min) of my part for the opera Schnitzler’sDreams
 

23.7 Flight to Stuttgart, Germany
24.7-7.8 International SummerAcademy of Music, Ochsenhausen
24-31.7 composing a piano trio

August
1-7.8 composing a commissioned melodrama (composition to be continued later) at Ochsenhausen

8-13.8 small vacation in Germany
14.8 travelling to Fredriksstad, Norway

14-21.8 Fredrikstad, Norway

Rehearsals for the installation opera Schnitzler’s Dreams
17.8-19.8 quick stop in Helsinki for a conference 18.8 for a theatre project I am involved in, back to Norway on the morning of 19.8.

20.8 premiere of the installation opera Schnitzler’s Dreams in Fredrikstad. (More performances 21-23.8, but no time to stay…)

21.8 Flight to Finland

21.8 more or less permanently in Finland

21-23.8 in Tampere at the TampeRinging festival, many premieres of my pieces, please feel welcome to listen!
20.8 at 21 o’clock Groove at the restaurant bar Telakka, Tampere
21.8 at 19 o’clock The Dorfman Trio at Ylioppilas teatteri, Tampere
22.8 at 12 o’clock Expressionen at Pietiläsali, Metso Library, Tampere
             19 o’clock the premiere of my string orchestra piece Infirmus!
23.8 at 19 o’clock Under Stjärnhimmelen, premiere of the organ version

But if everything goes according to plan then I will be quite happy with the outcome: composed Sirens (7 min.), a string orchestra piece Infirmus (7 min.), a piano trio, part of a melodrama and a 45 min. part of a chamber opera Schnitzler’s Dreams. All of the previously named pieces (minus the melodrama), Groove, Characters and the organ version of Under Stjärnhimmelen have their premiere this summer and also older pieces like The Dorfman Trio, Sydänlaulu and Expressionen will be played again in concerts! So quite a summer!

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).

The First Day at ISAM 2014

Friday the 25th of July. Oh my this day feels again like half a decade!

This is where we dine breakfast, lunch and dinner, chandeliers and original
frescos from 1740'ies. Photo © Cecilia Damström

So I was up at 7.30 and was at the breakfast table at 8.30. We ate breakfast in this incredibly beautiful large hall in the castle which is decorated with

beautiful pictures. At breakfast I met the first three composers; Jasper Schmich Kinney from Colorado, "Snooz" Leyou Wang from China, but studying in Stuttgart, and Marc Migó Cortés from Barcelona. I had already gone to sit by myself but Jasper waved me over, which was so nice of him!

Landes Academie Ochsenhausen, the place where the International Summer
Academy of Music is held every year. Photo © Cecilia Damström

After breakfast I went for a walk to see the whole place and OH MY DEAR

GOD it is BEAUTIFUL! I want to live here! There is a stable as well and an

art exhibition in one part of the monastery. I even found Jesus sunbathing

in the yard!

The art exhibition. Photo © Cecilia Damström

The entrance to the castle.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

The stables. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Jesus sunbathing in the backyard.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

Because the property and the castle/former monastery are so huge I grew tired

quite fast and went in again and composed for a bit more than an hour and

managed to write about 40 seconds of music!

This is where I composed today.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

Then it was already time for lunch at 12. At lunch I met another composer

from Colorado; Robert. After a great lunch I went to Marc’s and Jasper’s

room and they showed the pieces they have written for this course (Marc

has written a trio and Jasper a quartet). By the time they had shown their

music (at around 14 o’clock) it was already time for coffee and tea! So

off we were once again to eat.

After our afternoon tea we dropped by the library, which is very nice,

one more reason to live here! But the librarian, Andreas Kreißig , had to go and get professor Ofer Ben-Amots, so we only spent 10 minutes in the library before it closed. After that we went back to Marc’s and Jasper’s room and I presented them my pieces Dagbok and my orchestra piece Unborn and then Snooz presented us his Fugue and the second movement of his violin sonata.

Then I went back to my room and by now my roommate had arrived; Emi Morishita from Japan, but studying piano in Belgium. After having updated my Facebook with a picture from the amazing castle I napped for half an hour and then it was again time for dinner at 18 o’clock! I already have asked the librarian Andreas, in a joking tone, if they are trying to get us fatter for

slaughtering us at the end of the course…?

For dinner I had my own meal made, so nice of them! At dinner I met so

many new people that I have a very hard time remembering them but I will try: Evan Pensis from LA studying piano, Thomas Kudernatsch from Stuttgart studying organ, Aarón Ribas from Barcelona studying organ, Spencer Lyons from Colorado studying composition, Andrey Stolyarov from the US studying composition, Michael Essl from Stuttgart studying composition (at this course, in Stuttgart studying jazz piano), Sam Kinsey from LA studying piano and Geoffrey Conquer studying piano at Montreal. I also met professors Ofer Ben-Amots , Daniel Pollack and Jürgen Essl. There are a lot of more piano and organ student’s whom I haven’t met yet though.

After dinner we had a short presentation round and then an hour’s free time,

during which I composed a bit more (15 secdons) and wrote most of this update.

At 21 o’clock we met up and went to the “Gasthaus zum Schäfer”, a small

restaurant pub literally just across the street from when you leave the

monastery/castle ground. I had a big glass of banana juice, best juice

ever, but it’s mostly only available in Germany. The sun was setting and we sat

out side where we have this amazing view over the sloping fields. It turns

out Geoffrey Conquer, from Toronto (studying in Montreal), knows my friends Paolo Griffin (from summer camp as a child) and Sarah Albu (only by name, but anyway)! Such a small world! At a bit before 23 o’clock most of us were so tired that we all left for bed and I’m now sitting on my bed, with a head ache but still happily writing this update. But goodnight for now!

Traveling to ISAM 2014

Next up some blog posts about the composition master class called the International Summer Academy of Music 2014 that I attended last summer. It's a two week master class for composers, pianists and organists, held in a former castle like monastery, nowadays called Landes Akademie Baden-Württemberg, in a small village called Ochsenhausen. Many warm memomires from last summer!
Thursday the 24th of July 2014 and oh my what a long day it has been! Tomorrow the International Summer Academy of Music will begin here in Ochsenhausen, so I have spent the whole day traveling from Finland, via Copenhagen and Stuttgart traveling to Ochsenhausen.

So I slept exactly 3h last night, due to packing so long, got up a bit before 8 and washed my hair. I tried to read the newspaper but my eyes were so tired and hurt so much I could only keep one eye open at a time, so reading the newspaper went even slower and I gave up after having read the comic strips.

Today hasn’t been my lucky day. Just when I was in a hurry to leave for the airport I dropped a bottle of washing fluid, without a lid on, so a big part of the fluid went on the floor. I tried to wipe it up with a sheet that anyway was going to be washed but anyway managed to step into the washing fluid so I had to change socks.

I left home slightly too late so I didn’t manage to catch the bus I had planned to get, but took the 9.30 bus to the airport. I arrived at around 10.05 and tried immediately to check in on a machine but it said “contact staff”. So I did and he friendly pointed out that my flight was BOOKED FOR TOMORROW!!!! Oh my dear God! I have to be at the course by tomorrow, so the staff from SAS was friendly and called in a woman who could help me with re-booking, who actually was having her lunch break. By this time it was about 10.20 and my flight was supposed to leave at 10.55 for Copenhagen (and from there a connecting flight to Stuttgart). The lady warned me that it might be too little time, and so it turned out to be: she couldn’t print out a boarding pass later than 30 minutes before take off, and by the time she was going to print it was 28 minutes to take off, so it didn’t work. But she was very nice and re-booked me on a different flight to Copenhagen which still got me on good time to catch my connecting flight to Stuttgart! Obviously this whole ticket change cost me a lot, 79 euros for changing the ticket, 60 euros penalty fees and 25 euros service fee, so altogether 164 euros additional… But I still am forever grateful to the nice woman from SAS who managed to re-book me!

So at 12 I flew to Copenhagen. I had forgotten what horrible nausea I get when flying… and my ears always hurt badly, so I asked the steward if he could bring me some “Mickey mouse ears” on which he laughed out loud (in a friendly way) but anyway was kind enough to bring them. In Copenhagen I had a overpriced lunch, 17 euros for a small piece of fish and potatoes and vegetables, which were all cold by the time I had managed to queue with my dish and pay.

Copenhagen airport is huge, it took me a long while to walk to the next gate. It’s funny how much I can enjoy the smell of freshly baked croissants and buns although I can’t eat them anymore… Or maybe that’s exactly why I nowadays get satisfied by the mere smell of them?

To Stuttgart - we took off at 15.40 in a small propeller airplane with only 28 seats in it. Most of the time I used to write my blog.

I was quite late out of the airport area and immediately took a train to Stuttgart's main railway station, which takes about a good half an hour. At the main railway station I had good time finding the right track, buying an underpriced salad for 3,50 and a two photo-magazines for only 3,50 euros each! Oh I love the prices in Germany…!

On the train from Stuttgart to Ulm I happened to sit with two lovely middle aged ladies who I had just met earlier on the train ride and I joined in on their discussions and we had a great time together and time just flew past! We discussed how nicely the Finnish school system works, how they as Germans always expect the trains to work although they nowadays seem to be increasingly having technical problems very frequently, about languages and how times have changed since they went to school.

Arriving in Ulm at 21 o’clock I had only 5 minutes to change to my connecting train to Ochsenhausen, with my suitcase, backpack, two handbags and one photo-magazine bag, so obviously I missed the train.

I had to change track and there was no elevator at this train station (that I at least knew of). A girl saw me struggling with trying to get the luggage belt to work, which would pull up my suitcase, but it didn’t, and she was so nice and helped me to carry one of my handbags. But then a homeless person saw us struggling and came and helped push up by bag. He was so nice and polite! Then he continued rummaging in the bins for empty bottles, but he wasn’t being very lucky and looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. I was thinking of giving him some money and some of my snack food (fruit) but wasn’t sure if that would insult his dignity and before I had decided if I would give him money or not, he had already turned back and waved at me and wished me a good journey and disappeared. I regret not having given him anything as a thank you for his help!

I arrived 10 minutes after schedule in Ochsenhausen at 22. I had asked to be picked up, but no one was to be seen. I got worried; had my ride left? Or had anybody come at all? I tried to call the only number I had, but all my phone said was “this number does not exist”. After having waited for about half an hour and asked everyone (about 3 people) standing on the train station if they were from the International Summer Academy of Music, I began to get a bit desperate. I called my mother but just when I was almost going to surrender and take a taxi, a small bus drived up beside me with the text “Ochsenhausem Musik” on it’s side! I can’t describe how happy and relieved I was!

Out jumped a friendly middle aged man who drove me all the way, 23 km to the Castle and told me about all the cute villages we passed. In his village (which we also passed) there is only one bakery and one butcher, no other shop. But there are 4 or 5 “Gasthäuser” (bars)! I couldn’t believe my ears! But he said there was a shop in the next village, about 4 km away. But so many Gasthäuser!

It was completely dark and then we arrived: AT A TREMENDOUS BEAUTIFUL CASTLE!
I knew my Japanese composer friend Sayo Kosugi had told be about it and I had seen one picture but it was even bigger than in the picture! The man who had picked me up was the housekeeper and he was so nice and showed me around!