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!

Commission by the Finnish National Opera

Very happy to finally share with all of you: the Finnish National Opera has commissioned me to compose their next children opera "Djurens planet" to the libretto of Monica Vikström-Jokela! Premiere on March 15th 2019 and going on tour around Finland autumn 2019! Performed by five professional musicians (three singers, a keyboardist and a electric guitarist) and a children choir! Very honoured, happy and excited about this project! Read more about it on the National Operas website and in Hufvudstadsbladet!

Music: Cecilia Damström

Libretto and original story: Monica Vikström-Jokela

Director: Martina Roos

Costume design: Anna Kontek

Lights: Vesa Pohjolainen

Choir conductor: Anna Schultz

Cast:

Joy, mezzo soprano: Elli Vallinoja / Katariina Heikkilä

Jack, soprano: Hedvig Paulig / Saara Kiiveri

Tin, Dragon, Businessman, baritone: Tiitus Ylipää / Riku Pelo

Children choir: Åshöjdens musikklasser årskurser 3-6

Photo by Marthe Veian

Aino - Piano Quintet No. 2

My second piano quintet “Aino” Op.60 is also the second quintet out of a trilogy consisting of three large
form works with the theme “Woman’s Destiny”. The trilogy is a three-year commission by the Kokonainen
Festival in Finland. The first quintet “Minna” was premiered at the festival in 2017 and the last quintet
“Helene” will be premiered at the festival in 2019.

The second quintet “Aino - Emotions from the life of Aino Sibelius" will get its world premiere this year on
the 8th of June at the Kokonainen Festival 2018. It will be played by the incredible musicians Heli Haapala flute, Pekka Niskanen clarinet, Linda Suolahti violin, Lauri Angervo cello and Tiina Karakorpi piano. As the name says, it is a selection of feelings from the turbulent and fascinating
life of Aino Sibelius (1871-1969). She was the sister of three artist (the writer Arvid Järnefelt, the
painter Eero Järnefelt and the composer Armas Järnefelt) but she is best known for her being the
wife of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.

Aino around the time of her marriage (photo from c. 1891 / National Board of Antiquities Picture Archive)

Aino Sibelius was in opposite to Minna Canth very hard for me to understand as a person and
also at an emotional level, which means that I have worked very hard on this quintet “Aino”. As Jenni Kirves concludes in her book “Aino Sibelius - Ihmeellinen olento” (freely translated into
English by me):

“Aino Sibelius truly was a wondrous being. The secret of her persona will always remain a mystery
to us, no matter how hard we try to get to her core. As a human she was of her own class, a special
and contradictional woman, who at the same time was modest and strong, but within her strength very
sensitive and sometimes soft, even weak. Her personality is hard to categorise. Even in her time she
was considered to have a special character, which was hard to understand for many. From today’s
perspective it feels even harder. The women of today maybe find it even harder to identify themselves
with her persona than the women of her time. In this sense she was a artist in the same way as her
husband.

The easy way out would be to analyse Aino from today’s feminist perspective as a person who
sacrificed her own persona for her husband’s music. However she never experienced that she
had done so, instead she felt uplifted by her husband’s music and to be part of something infinite
and holy, and she saw herself as a privileged person. The persona of Aino Sibelius therefore can’t
be put into the context of today’s view of equality. Aino didn’t feel repressed because for her it was
self-evident that the woman is a woman and the man is a man, who both live according to their
nature. It wasn’t a question of repressing or being repressed, she thought women were meant to
use their own strength and men their own, and in this way they would fulfill their own path decided
by destiny.”

Even though Aino has been very difficult for me to understand, I still wanted her to be part of my
trilogy “Woman’s Destiny” because without her dedication to her husband and to their family we
would maybe (most likely) not have so many works by Jean Sibelius. Even Jean Sibelius
acknowledged how lucky he had been to marry Aino and said in his speech on Aino’s 75th
Birthday “You might have been happier and better off marrying another man, but I could never have been happier with anyone than with you”.

The first movement “Rakkaus” (Love) is what kept their marriage together even through very turbulent
times and the severe alcoholism, which Jean Sibelius suffered from. Aino and Jean felt that they had
found a soulmate in each other and loved each other deeply. Even after having been married for years
they seemed to be newly in love and Aino has also been called “the genius of love”.  She wrote about
their marriage “I am happy that I have been able to live by his side. I feel that I have not lived for nothing. I do not say that it has always been easy – one has had to repress and control one's own wishes – but I am very happy. I bless my destiny and see it as a gift from heaven. To me my husband's music is the word of God – its source is noble, and it is wonderful to live close to such a source.”

Repressing her own needs was a great part of Aino Sibelius’ life, even if she saw it as her duty to do so.
The second movement “Höyry” (Steam) is about repressing and controlling herself, while “steam was
coming out from her ears”. Having six daughters with a man who suffered from alcoholism, and his
travelling a lot for his work, and his spending a lot of nights away from home drinking, it must have
been such a strain on their marriage that it is hard to imagine how Aino made it through those times.
But when Aino was angry at her husband she would not shout at him, she would sulk in silence for
days or even weeks at a time.

But even during hard the times of their marriage, Aino Sibelius always missed her husband very much
when he wasn’t at home, which the third movement “Kaipaus” (Longing) is about. When the Sibelius
family got a radio set at home,  she got some comfort from hearing his music and concerts being
broadcasted, she felt closer to Jean through his music. After his death she lived for another 12
years in which she missed him tremendously. Aino would every evening read his scores in bed,
just to feel that he was a bit closer to her, for a little while.

“Rautaa” means iron and I feel that was what this woman, Aino Sibelius, was made of. The small and
fragile woman Aino had so much willpower and dedication to her life task and destiny that all I can do
is admire her. Aino Sibelius’ life was anything but easy: being the wife of an alcoholic artist who is
supposed to have said “I’m a poor man with a rich man’s habits”, which would lead to financial distress. Moreover their third child Kirsti died from typhoid
fever at the age of two (in 1900), Aino’s sister Ellen committed suicide one year later. Aino lived
through both of the world wars and the Finnish civil war. All of this is more than most people
could endure in a lifetime, but Aino did.

Minna - Piano Quintet No. 1

My first piano quintet “Minna” is also the first quintet out of a trilogy consisting of three large form works with the theme “Woman’s Destiny”. The trilogy is a commission by the Kokonainen Festival and the upcoming works will be premiered on the festivals of 2018 and 2019.

The first quintet “Minna - Pictures from the life of Minna Canth" will gets its world premiere this year on the 20th of August at the Kokonainen Festival. It will be played by the incredible musicians Linda Suolahti, Anna Husgafvel, Mari Viluksela, Sara Viluksela and Tiina Karakorpi. As the name says, it is a selection of images from the turbulent and fascinating life of the first famous Finnish feminist Minna Canth (1844-1897).

A sneak peek from the beginning of "Minna", my first Piano Quintet.

The first movement “Alku” (“Beginning”) is about Minna Canth’s happy youth - she was a very bright girl full of life. Her father wanted her to get the best education he could afford, and she was one of the first women to begin her studies at Jyväskylä Teachers Seminary, which was the first school in Finland to offer higher education for women. “I could once again dedicate myself to intellectual occupations and did so with great pleasure and joy. It was as though I had begun to live again.” She however interrupted her studies and married her former teacher Johan Ferdinand Canth. Within the next fourteen years she bore seven children while helping the poor, and working as a journalist.

The second movement “Pysähdys” (“Pause”) is about the despair I can imagine Minna felt, when her husband died in 1889 while she was pregnant with their seventh child. She was exhausted both physically and mentally. After the birth of her seventh child she was very depressed and wrote in her memoir “— — an awful force tried to overwin me to kill my youngest child”.

The third movement “Tahto” (“Volition”) is about the inner thrive of Minna. “My biggest joy and sweetest pleasure is writing. I can’t imagine how I could live anymore, if I wouldn’t be allowed to write” Minna wrote in a letter in 1883. Tirelessly she wrote both articles and theatre plays during the whole of her life. She was always a very idealistic woman who fought for the rights of the poor, sick and those in need. She worked for laws to regulate alcohol consumption, and for laws that would permit women to own property even after having got married. She questioned the idea that poor people were poor due to God’s will,  and instead she implied peoples’ obligation to help the ones in need. She was also a very well read woman who kept herself very well informed about the literature of her time. She writes in one letter “What a great war hero I would have been, had I been born a man in a time of war!”. Due to her fighting spirit and her critical texts, she also managed to get many enemies. But her impact on society was probably greater than that of any other woman at any time in Finland.  She is the only woman who has an own flag day in Finland - March 19th, the day of equality.

Minna Canth died due to heart failure on the 12th of May 1897 and the word about her death spread fast around Finland. Her funeral was held three days later and was so well attended that the whole cemetery outside the church was filled with people. The last movement “Muisto” (“Memory”) describes the void she had left in society through her death, but also how she has been the beginning of a new society where people have more equal opportunities. The women’s right activist Lucina Hagman, whom Minna much appreciated, writes about her friend Minna: “You, you taught us to feel humanity, taught us to look for humanity and to find it even there, where the world didn’t want to see it nor recognise it existed. This inexhaustible love is the greatest  gift you could give your people; you fulfilled by your acts the greatest eternal command; love one another.”

Portrait of Minna Canth by Kaarlo Vuori

Shapes for solo accordion

I have been very lazy with my blog the past two years but I have decided that I will start presenting my compositions and hope that will help me update at least a bit more often. So I will begin with Shapes that will have it’s premiere the 7th of December 2016 in San Sebastian, Spain.

Shapes Op.46 for solo accordion is a suite in six movements inspired by geometrical shapes. 

The first movement is a palindrome that goes from the middle register to the extreme registers (both high and low) and back again, therefor the name "The Rhomb".

The second movement is a slow ascending line beginning from the low register. 

The third movement is swelling circular movements in both hands and therefore is called "Circles and Ellipses".

The fourth movement is just as the name says, a “Pentagon Chaconne”, a Chaconne consisting of five chords that are repeated, and every chord consists of five notes, on top of which we have two independent melodies. 

The fifth movement “Dots” is a fast movement with dots flowing over and rushing everywhere. 

The last movement “The Icosahedron” is a three-dimensional shape, a polyhedron with twenty faces, or twenty equilateral triangles for being more specific. These twenty faces can be heard throughout the movement, as can the majestic slow turning of the Icosahedron.

The piece is commissioned by and dedicated to Janne Valkeajoki for his solo concert tour in the North of Spain 7 - 14 December 2016. The piece has received funding by the Madetoja-säätiö, Finland.

A Dream came true: Unborn premiered!

Saturday the 16th of January 2016. This week was the premiere of my orchestra piece Unborn, and it was absolutely wonderful!

I went by train to Jyväskylä already on Monday 11 January in the afternoon, and to my surprise quite many trains were fully booked, but I managed to get there before the snow storm broke out. (It wasn’t such a bad storm, but for some reason the trains in Finland stop working when there is a slight increase of snow… Which happens every year!) 

Jyväskylä town orchestra aka Jyväskylä Sinfonia had booked a room for me at the four star hotel Yöpuu. In the hotel every room is different and I had a really pretty room with beautiful wood furniture from the 19th century. For breakfast I had a hard time choosing what to eat, so I ate basically everything for not missing out on anything. It was really nice being in such a nice hotel, the only downside was that I felt like I was going bankrupt every time I ate something (a Sandwich, lunch or even a cup of tea!) that wasn’t included and paid for by myself. 

Dinner at Hotel Yöpuu in Jyäskylä 11.1.2016

Being a composer is so paradoxical. Without composers there wouldn’t exist any music to be played, but still it seems like composers are the ones who earn the least all of their life, even if they some day may get famous… I guess that is why so many composers try to be conductors as well, for surviving. And some also very successfully do both, like Gustav Mahler or Esa-Pekka Salonen. But there seems to be about one of them in every century.

The first rehearsal that I came to listen to (which actually was the third rehearsal for the orchestra) on Tuesday morning on the 12th of January was already a really good rehearsal and my piece sounded almost as I wanted it to sound. The conductor Ville Matvejeff had done a great job with my piece during the first two rehearsals. With only a few comments like “at rehearsal marks E and I the emotion should be more “hysterically energetic” and the woodwinds should maybe play fortissimo instead of forte” everything fell at once much better into place. I also had to ask all my glissandi to be played more slowly. But I have to say I was so relieved when I heard how well the first clarinet Gocho Prakov played his solo and all glissandi, because most people commented on my score when they saw the clarinet part “Are you sure this can be played?” and I said “Well, Martin Fröst played a Sörensen concerto with almost only glissandi in both directions” on which everyone responded “Yes but Fröst is Fröst…!”. So I was really happy that Prakov didn’t seem to have any difficulties either. After the orchestra had rehearsed my piece I told them the underlying story to the piece, and the whole orchestra said in one sad voice “aaaw“ (like the audience of the tv-show Friends). After my rehearsal I stayed and listened to the rest of the rehearsal, Sibelius Violin Concerto played by Petteri Iivonen and Brahms Third Symphony, while following the scores from my laptop (gotta love IMSLP!).

Ville Matvejeff conducting my piece Unborn, while I follow in my score.
Photo by @jklsinfonia 12.1.2016

Ville Matvejeff conducting the rehearsal of Jyväskylä Sinfonia, January 2016. 

After the rehearsal I had lunch with Matvejeff and Iivonen at the hotel restaurant and the rest of the afternoon and evening I spent composing my Melodrama which should be ready as soon as possible, and after that I went early to bed.

Wednesday the 13th of January, the day of the concert it was about ten degrees below zero (Centigrades) and quite a snow storm. The final rehearsal took place at the concert venue, which actually isn’t a concert venue at all but the main stage of the town theatre. Jyväskylä Sinfonia is one of the few town orchestras (along side with Lappeenranta town orchestra) that doesn’t have an “own” venue. The main hall of the town theatre only fits about 550 people, which means that the concerts of Jyväskylä Sinfonia are always sold out. This despite that the acoustics in the venue are terribly bad for classical concerts.

Final rehearsal of Unborn 13.1.2016. Ville Matvejeff conducting Jyväskylä Sinfonia.

 Jyväskylä is quite far away from other cities, it’s about a four-hour train ride from Helsinki. So this was the reason that my boyfriend was the only close person and family-member who came to listen to my premiere.

When I arrived at the concert venue I was happy to see one familiar face, the music critic Wilhelm Kvist from the newspaper Hufvudstadsbladet. He had come by train all the way from Helsinki for listening to this concert, which was very flattering!

My boyfriend and I had places on the third row at the end of the row, so that it was easy for me to go on stage and bow after the piece. I was very nervous during the premiere, but it went really well and I was so happy! I went up on stage and bowed once, the audience applauded politely long enough for me to bow and walk off stage.

My piece was followed by Sibelius Violin Concerto, which obviously was more in the taste of the audience, and Iivonen got to play two encores. In the break my boyfriend asked me “How do you feel now after the premiere??” and I honestly answered “…well, it feels a bit weird that I just had enough time to walk off stage before the applause ended…” and Janne answered “…well… you are a contemporary composer, you have to get used to it, that you aren’t as popular as Sibelius…” And I said “yeah, I guess my music has mainly been played at “contemporary concerts” and “contemporary festvals” where the audience likes contemporary music and even clap the composer back on stage, so I have just been living in my own little bubble”. With this said, it felt SO good when a random lady whom I walked by stopped me and told me that she really liked my piece, and her friends all agreed with her. While I was having a cup of tea a man was talking with his teen-age daughters and they were giggling and looking embarrassed and tried to stop the man, who also came up to me and thanked me for the piece. Maybe the daughters thought it was embarrassing to talk to a stranger? Maybe people think we composers “hear it all the time” that we compose well, that our music is good. But NO, WE DON’T! Too seldom people dare to come and give compliments to other people (at least in Finland), so dear readers; we composers for sure do need your encouragement! Because we are composing for YOU! I remember every one of the five people who came up to me after the concert and thanked me, every one of them warmed my heart and gave me one more reason to keep on composing.

After a nice second half with Brahms and a very short photo shoot, Iivonen, Mavejeff, Janne and I had a nice dinner at Restaurant Figaro. Even though Mavejeff has a career that is completely unbelievable for a conductor under the age of thirty, he is still a very humble and extremely nice person, so I’m not surprised that many like to work with him. Matvejeff was going to conduct an opera rehearsal the next morning in Turku, so he excused himself and didn’t join us for a drink at the bar but instead left, as he still had a 300-kilometre drive left to Turku in the snowstorm.

Petteri Iivonen, me and Ville Matvejeff after the concert in Jyväskylä 13.1.2016.
Photo by @jklsinfonia

I on the other hand had a good night’s sleep, went by train to Tampere, had lunch there and taught my pedagogical student, and then took a train back to Helsinki. (It was so much nicer to split up the four-hour train ride from Jyväskylä to Helsinki in two parts!) It feels funny that everything is already over, the premiere, it’s all over. Most of all I feel thankful and relieved everything went so well; that my scores were clear and the musicians were happy, the premiere went well, and I will have a review in Hufvudstadsbladet! What more could I wish for?

Autumn 2015

January 5th 2016. After a hectic spring and summer 2016 I have tried to do some downshifting and this laid back autumn has been exactly what I needed! 

So what have I been up to? I decided to take a gap-year from Malmö Academy of Music, because I couldn’t cope anymore with studying two degrees in two countries (a bachelor of piano in Finland and Masters in composition in Sweden). So this autumn I have pursued  my piano pedagogue degree in Tampere University of Applied Sciences while living in Helsinki at my parents place (for saving on living costs) and working on my freelance composition work. This autumn I have been working on my orchestra piece Unborn (2012-2015) that will be premiered by Jyväskylä Sinfonia on the 13th of January 2016 and also composing a melodrama commissioned by John Storgårds for the festival Sång och musikfesten 2016 to be premiered on the 11th of June 2016 in Kokkola. 

In the beginning of the autumn I also produced one concert for the festival Ung Nordisk Musik together with my friend and composer Dante Thelestam. And in November I was 12 days in Malmö for taking part of and helping to organise the contemporary music festival “Connect 2015 - The Apocalypse” organised by the composition department of Malmö Academy of Music. So I have been more or less in one place the whole autumn, which has been a really nice and welcome change. More over I have begun to sleep about 8h per night, which has correlated with feeling better and being a bit less ill, but also is a part reason to less blog posts.

Hoping to write more about all the events in separate blog posts, so once again being positive (or maybe just unrealistic?) about being back soon with my next post!

Music for String Orchestra

Saturday 11th of July. Sitting at my parents summer cottage and composing my new piece for string orchestra. It will be premiered by the Caprico Orchestra, conducted by Elisar Riddelin, on the 22nd of August at the contemporary music festival TampeRinging 2015. I have written about 5:30 minutes so far, and now trying to come up with something nice to end the whole piece, which I plan to be about 7 minutes. The whole piece is very much inspired by the Polish composers Witold Lutowslawski and Krzysztof Penderecki, so I will share below some of the music I have been listening to lately.

Lutoslawski’s String Quartet

Lutoslawski’s Third Symphony (one of my all time favorites, also used in the film Shutter Island)

All time classic (in contemporary music): Penderecki Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima

And today’s new discovery (suggested by YouTube! Actually I must say I'm quite impressed  by YouTube for finding this for me):

The Finnish composer Sampo Haapamäki’s accordion concerto Velinikka

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!