Wasteland Finnish Premiere

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! 

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!

Listen here!

November Concerts

November is here with a sparkling variety of concerts and me trying to keep up with them! 😅  This month my music is traveling to Germany, Canada, USA and different cities in Finland. 

November began with a pang: an excerpt of my string orchestra piece Fretus was performed during the Nordic Council Prize Ceremony. The event was streamed live to all Nordic Countries and can be seen online under this link. The exerpt of Fretus, a piece dedicated to all the oceans of our world, is performed before and after announcing the winner of the Nordic Council Enviroment Prize.

4th of November: The second movement Rädda mig from my choral suite Min Gud composed to Psalm 22 will get it's Canadian premiere by the Vancouver Chamber Choir conducted by the genious Kari Turunen. The piece Min Gud composed in 2010 is a very important work for me, and quotes from this work can be heard in several of my later works, so I'm very thankful for this performance.

10th of November: my playful duo Groove for flute and accordion is getting its German premiere at Klangwerkstatt Berlin Festival für Neue Musik. Groove is a piece which combines a fusion of jazz, progressive rock, latino rhythms and contemporary music elements and I can't wait to hear it again!

17th of November: Very happy about the Danish premiere of my piano solo pieces Characters and Under Stjärnhimlen, performed by the magnificent Xenia Frederiksen at Viborg Musikforening in Viborg Musiksal. You can find more information about the event here and find tickets here.

18th of November: Very happy that my music is returning to the United States and an other US premiere, with nothing less than my 20 minute Piano Quintet Helene - Nuances from the Life of Helene Schjerfbeck , inspired by paintings and the life of the most famous Finnish modernist painter Helene Schjerfbeck.

23rd of November: The third movement Athena from my duo Celestial Beings will be performed at the opening concert of the RUSK festival in Jakobstad, Finland.  Link to the festival’s program here.

25th “Aphrodite” and “Persephone”from “Celestial Beings” will be performed at RUSK at the concert ”Souls of Ill Repute” at 6PM

28th of November: My piano solo piece Epitaph will be released on the splendid Ville Hautakangas’ debut album 12 Premieres! Soon avaiable on streaming platforms! The concert is part of the Pirkanmaa Piano Festival.

Moreover I will also be travelling thanks to these concerts to Berlin 9-12th of November, to New York 13-15th of November, to Winchester Virginia 16-19th of November, to Princeton University 20th of November as well as within Finland to Jakobstad 23-26th of November and Tampere 28th of November, so please feel free to reach out if you are in the vicinity.

Composer Cecilia Damström. ©Photo by Ville Juurikkala

Quintet "Minna" on the Radio again

Last March my first Piano Quintet "Minna - Pictures from the Life of Minna Canth" was performed by the amazing musicians of TampereRaw! It was broadcast back then  by the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle. The radio programme "Aikamme suomalaista musiikkia" ("Finnish music of our time") is playing the recording in their latest program, so it is again online and can now be streamed all around the world for the next month! A presentation of Minna (in Finnish) begins at about 8:25 min and the actual piece begins at 11:50 min. Have a listen!

The program also contains pieces by my talented colleagues Jennah Vainio and Veli Kujala. For Finnish speaking friends I recommend you to listen to the very interesting commentary by the composer Aki Yli-Salomäki! 

Find the program online by clicking here!

Photo by Marthe Veian

My Quintet "Minna" on the Radio

One week ago on the 24th of March my first Piano Quintet "Minna - Pictures from the Life of Minna Canth" was performed by the amazing musicians of TampereRaw! On Thursday the 28th of March it was radio broadcast by the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yle and can now be heard all around the world for the next month! Minna begins at about 7:20 min, the concert also contains pieces by my dear colleagues Lotta Wennäkoski and Minna Leinonen, which are conducted by the wonderful Maria Itkonen. For Finnish speaking friends I can also recommend you to listen to the very interesting commentary by Kaarina Hazard! Find the program online by clicking here!

Epitaph Premiere!

Very happy with pianist Ville Hautakangas’ world premiere of my new piano solo piece Epitaph!

The premiere took place in Tampere Hall in the Small Auditorium. Before the concert composers Tuomas Turriago, Ilari Laakso and I, as well the star of the evening, Ville Hautakangas, were all interviewed by concert producer Suvi Leinonen at a pretalk session. We talked about our inspirations for our pieces, about how we compose, and our upcoming projects. The pretalk was well attended.

Pretalk at Tampere Hall. Suvi Leinonen, Ville Hautakangas, me and Ilari Laakso.
Photo by Lea Antola.

This was the program note for Epitaph:

Epitaph for piano solo is written for Ville Hautakangas and to commemorate our friend Jouni Kaipainen. Jouni was a particularly positive and intelligent personality. If you ever met Jouni and had the chance to talk with him, you won’t forget him. He was a very quick-witted man, and his knowledge didn’t only encompass music, but almost everything in this world, and it was so immense that you couldn't help but admire it. But this didn’t ever make Jouni snuffy, rather the contrary. He encouraged both young aspiring musicians and composers as well as colleagues more warm heartedly and genuinely than anyone else I know. His passing away one day before his birthday was a shock to me - the in my eyes, immortal Jouni was suddenly gone. He is not only missed as a prominent role model of Finnish cultural life, but above all as a friend.

The concert consisted of four world premieres;

Epitaph by Cecilia Damström

Häivä by Ilari Laakso

Somber by Tuomas Turriago

Inner by Matilda Seppälä

The concert was short and stylish, and very well attended. Light designer Ville Syrjä had made a separate light setting for each piece, which made up a beautiful entity.

Ville Hautakangas premiering my piece Epitaph at Tampere Hall 6.3.2019

It was a pleasure to see so many familiar faces in the audience, and so many people who also knew Jouni personally. The composition students from my former University TAMK as well as my former professor Doctor Hannu Pohjannoro were there along with other former study colleagues. Also the musicians from the ensemble Tampere Raw (who are also musicians in Tampere Philharmonic) were there, which was great.

We ended the lovely evening with delicious food and wine at the Tampere Hall restaurant Tuhto.

Tuomas Turriago, Ville Hautakangas and me after the concert 6.3.2019.
Photo by Lea Antola

Very much looking forward to share with you the video and sound recording by Tero Koski.

Happy Women's Day!

Happy Woman's Day to all great women out there!

Very happy Tampere Hall is arranging two wonderful concerts with music by so many wonderful composers! 

March 10th Kaija Saariaho - La Passion de Simone

March 24th Minna Canth - Naisen Muotokuva (Music by Wennäkoski, Leinonen and yours truly)

In honour of today's festivity you get a discount of the concert tickets until Sunday March 10th given my Tampere Hall, by ordering from here!

Today as well is the world premiere of the movement Hjärteblad from the cycle Vidkänning composed to poems by Henrika Ringbom. Vidkänning is composed for and performed by Akademiska Damkören Linnea and conductor Merete Ellegaard in their concerts Ett stycke kvinnokamp.

Also super excited about that it's exactly ONE WEEK to the premiere of my school opera Djurens Planet at the Finnish National Opera! The premiere is already sold out but welcome on the 16th of March, or one of the 120 performances during the next 2 years all around Finland!

Last but not least; feeling huge gratitude about the great premiere of my piece "Epitaph" Ville Hautakangas played two days ago in Tampere Hall! But a whole post about that coming up!

Life is good!

Epitaph in One Month

In exactly one month time on the 6th of March my piece "Epitaph" will get it's world premiere by pianist Ville Hautakangas at the Tampere Hall together with new pieces by Matilda Seppälä, Ilari Laakso and Tuomas Turriago. The concert is part of the event "In Focus Kaija Saariaho". Epitaph is composed in memory of composer Jouni Kaipainen, who was an friend of all of us six named above. Jouni was composer in residence at the Tampere Philharmonic, taught composition at Tampere University of Applied Sciences and played an enormous role in the Finnish cultural life. The concert pre-talk at 6 PM and the concert at 7 PM has no entry fee. Friends in Tampere, welcome!

Ville Hautakangas, Cecilia Damström, Ilari Laakso, Matilda Seppälä and Tuomas Turriago.

Piano Quintet Minna coming to Tampere

Was mentioned (at the very end) in this Sunday article by Helsingin Sanomat! My first Piano Quintet "Minna - Pictures from the Life of Minna Canth" will be performed by TampereRaw on March 24th in the Tampere Hall and will be broadcast by the Finnish Broadcasting Company! The concert also contains the work Hele by Lotta Wennäkoski and Naisen muotokuva by Minna Leinonen. Very much looking forward to the concert! And for Finnish speakers; here is a good chance to test which work by Minna Canth you could read in the meanwhile! Welcome!

Minna Canth, Minna Leinonen, me, Lotta Wennäkoski and conductor Maria Itkonen

Recapitulation of Spring 2014

Spring 2014 has been absolutely the most crazy and amazing spring so far in my composer career. Well, already if you consider that I have written 104 blog posts about what happened from the end of February until the beginning of June (so approximately during three month time), I guess that gives you some kind of picture HOW much has been going on… But in case you don’t have time to read all 104 blog posts, I will summarize last spring in one post, partly for my own sake.

So in January I broke up after four years in a relationship, which contributed to my decision to apply for masters in Sweden. I also participated in Vocal Espoo’s choral composition competition.

In February I got to know that both I and also our composer association Tampering had been given grants by the Finnish cultural trust foundation, which was great news!

In February my piece “Expressionen” was performed in Helsinki to a enthusiastic audience.

In March I travelled Tampere-Helsinki-Stockholm-Malmö-Copenhagen-Gothenburg-Stockholm-Helsinki-Tampere for entrance exams at three universities in Sweden (and one day sightseeing in Copenhagen), and got full points in the entrance exam at Malmö.

On the 14th of March I also made my Canadian début with my piece Loco for solo viola, which according to my friend, Canadian composer Paolo Griffin, wasreceived with standing ovations.

In the middle of March I also started writing this blog, A Composers Diary!

In the end of March I both produced and played my own piece Piano Delirium in the “Korvat Auki Tampere” concert in Pietiläsali, in the main library Metso in Tampere.

In April the music theatre production Buss Number 13 including 5 of my pieces, had three performances (and one pre-premiere) at the Tampere Hall, and the last performance was part of the contemporary music festival Tampere Biennale 2014. More over my pieces got a great review in the local newspaper Aamulehti.

In April I also participated in a conducting course, in which I conducted the orchestrated version of my own song cycle Dagbok, and the piece was premiered at the final concert of the course.

In the rest of April I worked as a producer for my own concert. I put together an orchestra, handed out 800 flyers in front of the Tampere Hall, contacted the radio station and two newspapers (which all three made interviews with me about the up coming concert, which was great for getting audience!) and led many of the rehearsals.

Suomen Työväen Musiikkiliitto offered me a publishing contract for my choral piece Kielikurssi for children's’ choir this spring and it will come out next winter!

On the 14th of May I had myfirst composers recital, with over 200 people in the audience and a good review in the daily newspaper Aamulehti. It included premieres of my choral works Visheten and Min Gud.

Moreover in May my piano solo piece Psychedelic was premiered at the composers concert in Tampere and my solo viola piece Loco was performed at the RRR!! Festival in Helsinki.


In addition to all above named I also have written my thesis and defended it, AND written a 10 minute piece for symphony orchestra (while sleeping 2 night on the floor of my school) and have passed my final exams for becoming a composer.

Finally my choral works El jardín de las morenas and Credo have been premiered at the VocalEspoo choral festival, have been awarded third and joint second prize and have been broadcast by the National Finnish Radio Company Yle.

I think I can call it a day. Or a spring, that is to say.

A little bit of this and that…

Thursday the 22nd of May 2014. This week has been filled with a little bit of this and that and a lot of composing. On Monday I applied (of course on the deadline day) for the comprovisation course at the contemporary music festival Time of Music in Viitasaari (Finland). The rest of the day I only used for composing my orchestra piece “Unborn” which has to be finished by the end of this month.

Tuesday morning I wrote a small test for my thesis (to prove I’m the actual author), then voted in the EU elections, composed the whole day and took quite a late train back to Helsinki.

On Wednesday I had to go to the “sailors doctor” for a regular check-up for getting the “sailors health certificate” so that I can work on board for the next two years. You have to book the time to the sailors doctor about two to three month ahead, and you can’t work on a ship without having a valid certificate, so that’s why I had to do it this week although I’m supper busy with graduating right now…

After the check up I took directly a train back to Tampere and headed for my one of my last composition lessons with my teacher Hannu Pohjannoro. It was quite a depressing and stressful lesson. First of all, he told me the deadline for my composition “exam” (returning all the pieces that will be evaluated as my exam), is next Tuesday the 27th of May, so in 6 days time.

I have been working on (=planning in my head) my orchestral piece “Unborn” for about 3 years now. It is basically going to be a string ostinato (= patterns that stay the same throughout the piece) with a dialogue between woodwinds and brass on top of the ostinato. This dialogue I have begun to write about three times so far and on my lesson I had only about 4 minutes dialogue written out of 12 minutes music planned. Not only did I notice my teachers undertone that he didn’t believe I would ever be able to get the piece ready by the deadline, but I also noticed that he didn’t seem to be sure if the material I had would be enough to fill a 12 minute piece.

Well, after this depressing encounter I went home and dropped of my bags, ate, and headed to listen to my friend Annuska Hannula’s final exam concert in theatre music at Kulttuuriravintola Kivi, and she did absolutely great. I tried to leave a bit early, because more or less at the same time it was the final exam concert of my singer friend Tiitus Ylipää, in which the piece “The Voice” by my friend Matilda Seppälä’s was premiered. I ran all the way from Annuska’s concert to Tiitus’ concert, but by the time I arrived I could hear the final applause, so sadly I heard nothing of that concert.

Eero Kiukkonen, Annuska Hannula and Vera Veiskola 21.5.2014.
© Cecilia Damström

The whole Thursday I spent writing, about 4 or 5  hours in the day and the same amount at night again. In between I went and listened to the “Young soloist concert”, where many of my friends (like trombonist Roosa Lampela, violinist Riikka Alakärppä, percussionists Henri Sakki and Ville Koppanen and pianist Lotta Penttilä) got to play one movement or a short piece as the soloist of the Tampere Philharmonic! The audience in the Tampere Hall consisted this night mainly of friends and relatives of the soloists so the ambience was really great; warm and encouraging.

After this I headed to the composition studio where I spent the next 7 hours (until 4 AM) writing my orchestra piece “Unborn”.  And as crazy as it might sound; I began a fourth and final time from the beginning with writing the dialogue between woodwinds and brass! Yep, quite crazy to do that 6 days before the deadline, but I agreed with my teacher and felt like my material wasn’t quite good enough for making a 12 min piece.

After My Recital

Thursday the 15th of May. I can’t believe it’s all over! Well, not quite true, I still have my thesis dissertation tomorrow and have to write a 10 minute orchestra piece before the end of the month and hand in some tasks for graduating… But the concert! It’s over!

After I had hugged all my friends and family who came to the concert yesterday I got all my stuff (my backpack and two plastic bags) and went with my parents by car to my apartment. While my parents and grandmother greeted my rabbit I ate for the first time this day; Chinese food my mum had brought from a take-away! I was starving but had about 10 minutes to stuff in me as much food as possible and change clothes before I was off again.

The route of the night were all our stamping grounds: pub Tuoppi, Artturi and bar Gloria. When I stepped into Tuoppi the pub burn out into applauses. All my friends were already there and were seated and beaming at me. It was such a wonderful feeling in the air! I was so tired and wanted to talk to and thank everyone and it was so hard to “choose” whom to sit with.

After Tuoppi we went to Artturi, because that place serves food late. But at 2 AM also that place closed, so more or less the only option left (on the West side of the river) that was open until 4 AM was bar Gloria, so a decent number of us headed there.

At 5 AM  I was finally home and in bed and asleep! Thinking I would sleep nice and long I was quite disappointed to wake up at 11 AM and notice I couldn’t sleep any longer. (My body seems to have got used to 4h sleep a night…) Even though I should be preparing my PowerPoint presentation of the dissertation of my thesis for tomorrow, I couldn’t help my self and be simply lazy and do absolutely nothing at all until the afternoon.

At 17 o’clock I headed to the Tampere Hall: they are planning on founding a new small society for students which will be called “The Young Listeners Club” and wanted to hear students opinions about what this club could be like and what we would be interested in. Because I am absolutely terrified by how “traditional” and boring (!!!) theprogramme of Tampere Philharmonic is in autumn 2014, I felt I really needed to attend this meeting for getting my voice heard about this terrible matter. In autumn 2014 there is exactly TWO new piece on the programme! More or less everything else is Shostakovitch, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky! Yes yes, I do like these composers as well, but it’s a bit boring to only listen to these a whole season, don’t you think? Like if the world wasn’t full of music!

After the meeting I listened to the concert of Tampere Philharmonic which included Ligeti, Prokoffiev's 3rd piano concerto and Tchaikovsky’s first symphony (as if it would be foreboding next autumns programme). I was so tired in the concert I had a really hard time to concentrate and listen.

Have a listen to Prokofiev's 3rd piano concerto, just because

 it's such a great piece, performed by Yuja Wang
(although she wasn't performing in Tampere).

After the concert I went home for planning tomorrows thesis dissertation. While skimming through my thesis I noticed a terrible error: I had forgotten to paste the whole conclusion into the rightly formatted thesis that I had sent of to my opponents!  (Well, in a way I’m not that surprised, my thesis is all together 75 pages and I have been very tired lately, so a mistake was almost bound to happen…) So I quickly sent of the conclusion of my thesis to my opponents, hoping it wouldn’t pull down my grade too much!