Intense Concert Week Ahead

In about one weeks time "Sof godt!" for mezzo soprano, baritone and orchestra will get it's world premiere on the 8th of October at 6PM in Vaasa City Hall! The piece will also be performed in the Schauman Hall in Jakobstad on the 9th of October and in Helsinki at the old concert hall of Sandels Music Institute on the 11th of October, both concerts at 6PM!

In exactly two weeks time my second piano quintet "Aino - Emotions from the Life of Aino Sibelius" will get it's Swedish premiere in the Berwald Hall in Stockholm on the 13th of October at 1 PM!

For this reason I would like to share the recording of the last movement "Iron" from Aino, recorded at the world premiere last June at the amazing Kokonainen Festival! Please have a listen!

All concerts, just as the streaming of this recording, for free!

https://soundcloud.com/ceciliadamstrom/aino-iv-rautaa-iron

Tundo!

Tomorrow it's time for the world premiere of my piece "Tundo!" in Stockholm with Gävle symphony orchestra conducted by Andreas Hanson! I would like to share what I have written about my new 10 min orchestra piece with you here:

"Time is ticking while over 65 million refugees are knocking at the door of Europe in seek of help and hope for a better life. Refugees who have lost everything, who have walked miles, who have paid everything they own for saving their own and their families’ lives. The European Union has had a hard time choosing sides. And while it is tightening the regulations for refugees, the pressured knocking at our door is growing ever stronger. A both economic and humanitarian catastrophe is starting to show its full extent.

Tundo is the latin word for “Knock” and is my description of the catastrophe of our time. I have tried to put in to music the knocking, the wars, the beautiful landscapes refugees have walked by, the rain that has poured over them, the sea and the dangerous boat ride, the screams for help, the arguing among the European Union’s elite bureaucrats, the shouts of “don’t let them in”, the grief and pain due to loss of loved ones, the sympathy we Westerners have but which only lasts as long as the refugees don't affect our own lives in any way. All of this exists at the same time simultaneously, all of this is a part of our time, all of this will be part of our history and a burden on our conscience.

Events like one of the world’s greatest nations choosing a racist, misogynistic man for president, have shattered me and put all my idealism into question. I’m not a politician, I’m not rich nor influential, but through my music I at least try to do my part for making the world a little better place to live in. By touching other people’s hearts and telling the story of those who don’t have a voice of their own in society - the refugees. "

Photo by Marthe Veian Andreassen

Happy Women's Day!

Wishing everyone a wonderful Women's Day!
Very honoured by the fact that the first pieces by me that will be performed at the big Scandinavian venues such as the Finlandia Hall, Helsinki Music Centre (main hall), Stockholm Concert Hall, Turku Concert Hall and Linköping Concert & Congress Hall are all compositions for male choir! Many thanks to all the men who have taken the initiative to commission women like me to write new pieces for male choir, as the absence of repertoire in their choirs composed by women is striking! (One choral library of over 600 pieces for male choir contained only one piece composed by a woman, which makes about 0.17% of the library!) Thank you to the men who decided to make a change and for making the world more equal on this point.
Next performances: 24.3 Finlandia Hall (world premiere of "Pauli Ord" by Muntra Musikanter at their 140 year anniversary concert), 14.4 Helsinki Music Centre (Finnish premiere of "At Teasdale's" by Akademiska Sångföreningen at their 180 year anniversary concert) and 21.4 Stockholm Concert Hall (Orphei Drängar will sing "At Teasdale's" at their spring concert)! Welcome!

After the premiere of "Sailing to Windward" at Brahe Djäknar's 80 year
anniversary concert on the 13th of May 2017 at Turku Concert Hall.
Photo by Janne Valkeajoki

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!

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

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!

The 17h travel

The trip back was a great 17h trip. While walking through Stockholm to the boat I noticed how many homeless people there were sleeping in the streets. Suddenly bumped in to a gathering of people and beggars. I asked some one, who looked like he was in charge of the gathering what was going on, and he told me he every day went around to some restaurants and cafés and gathered all their leftovers and handed it out to the homeless. Because it actually is illegal in Sweden to hand out leftover, he did it at 5.30 before the police “was awake”! When he heard I was a composer he told me I should participate in the “Eurovision for homeless people” that will take place in October 2014 in Stockholm! Eurovision for homeless people, can you believe it?! He was so nice and told me to take some food as well (which made me happy as I had about 20 euro on my account at the time in total). So I got a good salad for free, which was my only food the whole day!

A few of the homeless people on the streets of Stockholm.
20th of June 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

These two men were in charge of feeding the homeless of Stockholm.
20th of June 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Bread for the homeless of Stockholm.
20th of June 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Some homeless people in Stockholm gathered for getting some free bread.
20th of June 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

The sallad I was given for free in Stockholm.
20th of June 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

On the ferry back to Finland, Viking Grace, I met an Australian back-packer called  Joshua Boyle. The first 4 hours we both spent sleeping (in chairs on the common area of the boat), but then I asked him if he could watch my bag while I went to tax-free (for buying a small plate of dairy free chocolate, as I counted that it would have the most calories that you can get for 2 euros, which will keep my hunger away for the longest, in addition to the salad). After that I and Josh talked without a break for the next 8 hours until we arrived in Turku, Finland. We of course became Facebook friends and he even came later on and visited me with his friends while driving home from Mongolia through Sweden in September, but that’s a different story.

Walking to the Viking Line ferry in Stockholm.
20th of June 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Walking to the Viking Line ferry in Stockholm.
20th of June 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

View from the ferry Viking Line Grace.
20th of June 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Joshua Boyle, my new friend from Australia.
June 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Final Symphony Stockholm

On the 19th of June I flew to Stockholm for hearing the concert Final Symphony Stockholm. Two very close friends of mine, Jonne Valtonen and Roger Wanamo have written the arrangements of the Final Fantasy game music for symphony orchestra. The concept has become a hit among gamers all around the world, so they have had concerts with for instance London Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic , WDR Sinfonierchester and now for the third time The Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. (Ironically it hasn’t until now been performed in Finland yet, but it will come in September to Tampere and be performed by the Tampere Philharmonic, the very same concert, but I will be in Malmö by then.) Even though they are really good friends of mine I have never before attended a concert their game music arrangements, so I decided that the time had finally come to go and listen, as the concert was so close by (in Stockholm).

Me with Stockholm in the background 19th of June 2014. Photo © Mari Pakarinen

Delicious raw food desserts at Hermans, Stockholm 19th of June 2014.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

Lunch with Mari Pakarinen at Hermans restaurant.
Stockholm 19th of June 2014.
Photo © Cecilia Damström 

Stockholm 19th of June 2014.
Photo © Cecilia Damström

So I bought a cheap Norwegian airways flight to Stockholm, arrived on the 19th of June early in the morning, had lunch with my friend Mari Pakarinen at the vegetarian restaurant Hermans, spent the day with my friends, attended the fantastic concert that was received with standing ovations (and three encores), hang out with my friends and the musicians at the after party and caught at 6.30 AM the boat back to Finland. 

Roger Wanamo and Jonne Valtonen at the concert pre-talk,
Stockholm 19th of June 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström

Jonne Valtonen, Roger Wanamo and Mari Pakarinen at the Final Fantasy concert
Stockholm 19th of June 2014. Photo © Cecilia Damström