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

Happy New Year 2018!

A good year behind with several premieres and concerts all over Finland and also a few concerts in Sweden and Germany as well! In 2017 the great male choir Brahe Djäknar premiered “Sailing to Windward” in Turku in May, my piano quintet “Minna” got an outstanding premiere at the Kokonainen Festival in August, the excellent choir Jubilate premiered my “Missa Brevis” in November, my opera for children “Dumma Kungen” got a perfect premiere and review in November and my song cycle “Tidens ordning” got a great premiere as one of the finalists of the Yrjö Kilpinen Lied Composition Competition, which was broadcast by the Finnish Broadcasting company!

This Christmas I got many nice presents, but my favourite present was that my opera “Dumma Kungen” got nominated for the title “Children’s Opera of the Year” alongside nine other great productions! The winner will be announced at the Helsinki opera gala on January 14th 2018, keep your fingers crossed for me until then!

This year I have again many exiting projects and commissions coming up: a new piano quintet for the Kokonainen Festival and an orchestra piece for the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra, among others! I will also have my first public lecture at the Sibelius Academy on the 8th of February, very exciting indeed!

Hope you all have had a wonderful year 2017 and I wish you a even better year 2018!

Wishing You a Happy New Year 2018! Photo by Marthe Veian Photography

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!

The Day Before The Concert

Tuesday the 13th of May. Tomorrow is my concert “Landet som icke är” (The Land Which Is Not), my first composition recital! First thing in the morning I went and bought today’s copy of the newspaper Aamulehti for reading the interview. Although I of course know what I had answered I always want to know what they chose to write… On the way to the kiosk I bumped in to our caretaker, who had already read the article and said he would come to my concert. I am very flattered, he has probably never been to a contemporary music concert before.

The interview in Aamulehti 13.5. 

We have to keep a Tampering meeting today so that we will officially decide if I get money for paying the choir at my concert or not, and it should be decided before the concert.  But composers, timetables, and busy springs don’t go very well together, and only Matti and Timo were at the meeting. I sent a message to Matilda, to remind her and she said she would be there in half an hour, so we decided to wait, because we need to be four people for meetings to be legal.

While waiting for Matilda the music critic Wilhelm Kvist from Hufvudstadsbladet (the leading Swedish-language newspaper in Finland) phoned and made a short interview for tomorrow’s newspaper.

When Matilda arrived we held the meeting. We also called our chairman Henri, so he “attended” part of the meeting by phone. 

After the meeting, that anyway ended well, I started to bind together the score for my piece “Landet som icke är” which I will be conducting tomorrow. Well, the binding didn’t go that well, as I ended up binding the pages in the wrong order!  Whoops! Finally after trying to obtain a new unbound copy, I was already a few minutes late for the rehearsal.

This time all musicians and singers could come, yes! But my poor viola player had a very severe flu and was feeling like crap. I was for some reason really nervous (maybe after the notesheet copying rumba) and had a really bad day conducting… But the singers Anna Ranki and Julius Martikainen were doing absolutely great, I was really impressed. Also my trumpetist and friend Mari Pakarinen was doing wonderfully and coming in at the right place even though I (as a conductor) kept showing her in at wrong bars, it was so embarrassing! Yep, well I guess I once again was proven that I really should not be nervous when I conduct but instead meditate before and be 100% concentrated in rehearsals.

The rehearsal went so well that we decided to cancel our final rehearsal for tomorrow so that the singers could save their voices and the viola player have more time to rest and take care of her self (and the flu).

After “Landet som icke är” we were again trying together with the music technician Petrus Tuisku to get my electronic pieces “Die Berge” and “Der Wald” to work and this time we also managed to get it to work at about 23 o’clock!  I don’t know which of us was more relieved. But we still are both a bit worried about tomorrow, because there is an exam in the concert venue before my concert that ends at 16:00 and the orchestra will arrive for a dress rehearsal at 17.00 so there isn’t much time to set up all the electronics and recording equipment…

After this I headed home. Mari is staying over at my place this night (as she doesn’t live in Tampere anymore), so I let her sleep and went into the kitchen and continued writing the programme booklet for the concert. It has to be done before tomorrow morning, so I have to send it off tonight.

My rabbit Viljo was very happy to get company, and he is also otherwise always very active at night. I don’t know why, maybe because it’s spring, but he has the past month taken a habit of trying to hump my feet (especially when I wear white woolen socks). So when I crossed my legs for making it easier to keep the laptop in my lap while writing, I would every 5 minutes have a humping rabbit at my foot, which was really annoying! So I would put down my foot for a while (then he leaves me in piece) and after a while cross the other leg and off he went again!

My rabbit Viljo chewing his own feet. © Cecilia Damström

Well at 5 A.M. I was finally done and sent of the programme. It was in word format 40 pages long!!! But I am so happy still: I will receive free help from Tarja Reijonen who works for TAMK and Tampere Conservatory doing programmes and posters (among other stuff). If I would have had to think about the layout I would never have made it in time! Very exhausted but happy, I wished a disappointed Viljo good night.

"Already going to bed?" my rabbit Viljo wonders. © Cecilia Damström

A Radio Interview and Secondhand Shopping

Monday May 12th. Headed of at 12 towards the studio of Radio Classic where Inkeri Pyylampi interviewed me. I was very nervous about the interview, as Finnish anyway is my fourth language, and when I’m nervous I tend to forget words, and speak too fast. So I tried to warm up my voice, do some qigong meditation and concentrate on speaking slow and calmly in the interview.

The interview went quite alright (although I forgot the word “talent” but managed to say it in some other way). It can be listened online on Radio Classic’s soundcloud by clicking here (but sorry, only in Finnish).

I have been thinking a lot about what I want my concert to look like. I like pretty and fancy clothes and have asked all my musicians to put on an evening dress, but don’t own one my self at the moment… As I still didn’t know what I was going to wear on my concert in two days time, I decided to go shopping. But because I have used up my “student money” and didn’t get any money this month, I’m as broke as ever, so I can’t afford anything new. So I went secondhand shopping. To SEVEN different secondhand stores!

So I started at the secondhand (chain) store  Fida on Tammelan puistokatu 37, but found nothing. Then I dropped by Seppälä (a normal store (not secondhand) which isn’t super expensive) but didn’t either find anything I liked. I headed to UFF. They had sales and almost all items were 4 euros each. I found a petrol colored evening dress, which is the perfect color for me, but the dress was too big. I bought it anyway (for a total of 8 euros) just incase I wouldn’t find anything else, then I could at least sew the whole night and make it fit… But luckily I didn’t have to do that!

After UFF I went to Radiokirppis, which usually is very good, but I didn’t find any evening dress there. Instead I found three blazers (a pink, a black and a beige one, all in my size, and cost together only 30 euros) which also made me happy, but not useful for the concert on Wednesday! But I bought them anyway…

My three new blazers from Radiokirppis
for all together 30€!

After this I went to the secondhand (chain) shop Pelastusarmeija on Puutarhakatu 20, but didn’t find anything there. Then I went to Fida on Kuninkaankatu 22 and there I found a purple evening dress for 12 euros! It was quite nice but had a very open back, which wouldn’t look so good while I am conducting (because I would look half naked from behind).

So I couldn’t resist my self and went into a last secondhand shop, Pelastusarmeija on Satakunnankatu 27, and there it was: the perfect dress! Darkblue, right size, long enough, elegant enough, simply perfect for me in every way! It was the most expensive one though, 45 euros, but totally worth it! (Especially considering my timetable!)

After this enormous shopping round I brought everything home and started writing my programme booklet for the concert and ate. At 21 o’clock I headed to the conservatory for a rehearsal of my piece “Flying high”. We got to rehearse in the actual concert venue (Pyynikkisali), which was nice! The clarinetist Andreas Heino had his Zoom recorder with him, so we recorded the session and listened to it straight away, which was very good because the oboist Heikki Pöyhönen came with many good remarks about how to improve the balance between the instruments.

After the rehearsal I asked if the flutist Jenni Halonen would have time to stay and help me test the microphone for the electronics in my pieces “Der Wald” and “Die Berge”, and she was so nice and stayed for a long while. Unfortunately the sound technician Petrus Tuisku and I didn’t manage to get my Max MSP patch to work this evening, or that is to say; we didn’t manage to get the microphone sound in to nor out of the patch, so it was impossible to say if anything was working. After a while I just told Jenni she could go home, because it didn’t seem like we would get it working tonight, and right I was (unfortunately). We tried together with Petrus to figure out what was wrong until 23:30, but then the alarms go on and you have to be out of the building.

At midnight when I came home I continued to write my programme  booklet for the concert. As always I can’t do it the “easy way”, because it’s simply not me, so I have chosen to have almost all texts in Finnish, Swedish and English. (Finnish for the large audience, Swedish for my identity of a Swedish speaking Finn and for showing people in this Finnish region that Swedish is actually a used language, and English because I know a lot of people who don’t speak Finnish nor Swedish). At around 4 AM I decided to go to bed, even though the programme booklet isn’t close to ready yet…

Rehearsals and an Important Call

Yesterday we had a second rehearsal with my quintet “Flying high” for my upcoming concert 14th of May. In the evening I went and listened to the chamber choir Näsin Ääni rehears my music as well. But it was so strange, the choir was yesterday evening very different compared to what it is like normaly, somehow it seemed to be harder than usual for the choir to keep in tune and other weird stuff like that. But maybe the “long break” (as they didn’t rehears last Wednesday, because it was Vappu eve) was present in yesterday’s rehearsal.

The chamber choir Näsin Ääni
practising for my concert.
© Cecilia Damström

The chamber choir Näsin Ääni
practising for my concert.
© Cecilia Damström 

The chamber choir Näsin Ääni
practising for my concert.
© Cecilia Damström

The chamber choir Näsin Ääni conducted by Markus Yli-Jokipii,
practising for my concert. © Cecilia Damström

Today I had piano class with my teacher Risto Kyrö and after my class Harri Hautala, the main music critique from the local paper Aamulehti called me and asked if I could come for an interview tomorrow! I’m so excited! Hopefully the interview will help to get a larger audience to my concert, which would be really nice! (The concert is for free, so I don’t hope to get more money, I just hope people will come and listen to my great music and maybe my music will touch someone, that’s all I’m asking for!)

In the afternoon I had my piano student and the rest of the evening I was working on my thesis, because I should be handing in a preliminary version to my teacher tomorrow and the deadline is on Friday the 9th of May!

Oh yes I got an other nice email: I was also accepted for masters in composition at the University of Gothenburg as well! Now I’m considering which option to go with, but at the moment Malmö still feels a bit closer to my heart, simply due to intuition and how at home I felt in the city.  Some cities simply immediately feel like home and others just never will feel like a place for you and I know that very well by now, so I think I will trust my intuition.

Rehearsals and Thesis

Friday the 2nd of May. This day has once again been filled with so great events that I cannot describe how blessed I feel that I have the opportunity to be a composer, that I have so many friends who help me and that I am currently arranging my first own composition concert!

So the day began at 10 in the piano laboratory with a rehearsal together along with my pianist friend Tuomas Salokangas, who is going to premiere my piano etude “Psychedelic” next Wednesday at the composers’ concert. The piece is a 7 minute long study of the timbre and overtones of the piano, consisting only of two chords, c minor (tonic) and G major (dominant). Because it is such a long etude consisting of a lot of one-hand tremolos it is easily very tiring for the pianist and I was very anxious about how Tuomas was feeling about playing this piece. But he played it once through for me without difficulty and it sounded great! I expressed a few adjustments but that was about it.

 

Tuomas Salokangas playing my composition
Psychedelic for me. © Cecilia Damström

After this uplifting rehearsal I headed to the main building of the conservatory and on the way there I managed to call Harri Hautala, the main music critic of the biggest regional newspaper Aamulehti. I cheekily told him that I was organising my own composition concert including a choir, an orchestra and much more, all together over 60 musicians on stage and that this is the biggest musical event a pupil has ever organized alone so far at Tampere University of Applied Sciences. I added that the concert is for free and might interest the audience. He told me to email him directly to his personal email and he would get back to me in case he was interested. On one hand I was amazed by how bluntly brave I had been, but on the other hand I feel I did the right thing as it’s only a plus for the audience of Tampere to know about such a nice free concert!

After a quick lunch I headed off for the first rehearsal of my piece Flying high. Flying high was performed in Tampere Biennale 2012 but now all the musicians are new and we will only have three rehearsals before the concert, so I will be conducting. Or conducting isn’t quite appropriate word for what I’m doing; My main task is to be a metronome. The piece will, at my concert (14.5), be performed by my friends Piia Rytkönen (soprano and jouhikko), Jenni Halonen (flute), Heikki Pöyhönen (oboe), Andreas Heino (clarinet and bass clarinet) and Taina Raittila (cello). The rehearsal went really well for being a first rehearsal, so I was very happy about that!

After the rehearsal I had planned to listen to my trumpetist friend Mari Pakarinens’ final trumpet exam (B-exam) for bachelors. Unfortunately our rehearsal ended so late so I only heard the last piece through the door but it sounded great! She has advanced so much in the last three years, I’m so proud of my dear ex-flatmate! She obviously got full points, a 5/5 for her exam.

After spending some time on correcting the questionnaire for my thesis I met up with my friend from church Natalja Pfeifer and her parents, whom are visiting from Germany for a few days. Her father is a cantor and Natalja has been telling them on skype about all my concerts she has been attending. Natalja’s parents were very nice and her father gave me this amazing CD of contemporary cello pieces, which is great, as I am planning on writing my cello sonata this upcoming summer!

At home I started seriously stressing out about my thesis. As my thesis is a comparative study of the study plan in composition at three different universities I had to hand out a questionnaire to the three universities. I have already handed out the questionnaire to the pupils at the Conservatory of Valencia, and got back 10 answers, which is enough. But I still haven’t handed out the questionnaire to the Finnish universities and it struck me that I HAVE to send out the questionnaire by tomorrow if I want to have ANY chance of finishing my thesis by next week, Friday 9th of May!

So I called my dear friend Matilda, all desperate, at 12 AM and asked if she could correct my questionnaire in Finnish as soon as possible, and she replied “I’m at the composition studio, come here, I’ll do it at once.” What a saving angel! So on Friday eve at 00.30 I arrived at the composition studio and Matilda first spent about an hour reading through all the questions (it’s a 6 page long questionnaire) and then spent another 20 minutes answering it! It’s unbelievable that I am so lucky to have a friend like this! (If this were a Facebook status I would add the mood “feeling blessed”!)

Matilda helping me with my thesis in the middle of the  night on a Friday!

Composition Class

Thursday April 24th.

I have received an invitation for the entrance exams for masters at the Sibelius-Academy, which will take place on the 5-9 of May. With the invitation we also got two tasks, which have to be handed in on the first day of the entrance exams. Both tasks were one page of music, and we are supposed to compose a second page (about 10 bars) in the same style as the given task. The one piece is for oboe and piano in an impressionistic French style, so that isn’t a very difficult task. The second task is a song with piano accompaniment in a modern style with complicated rhythms, and I tried for 30 min to sight read that one page but didn’t manage! So I have no idea how I will be able to compose the second page! (By the way, the tasks change every year, so that is why I dare describe the tasks online.)

Today I had composition class. I had so many questions to my teacher Hannu Pohjannoro about non-compositional random stuff: if he thinks I can apply for the grant from our school and if he can write me a recommendation letter, questions about the old and new study plan in composition (in other words questions for my thesis) and also I wanted to discuss the up-coming entrance exams for masters at the Sibelius-Academy.

I have been working for quite a while on my orchestra piece “Unborn” (all together I have had the idea of the piece for three years!), but every time I bring it to class it feels like I have done (almost) nothing and that the piece is just as unready and at it’s beginning as the previous lesson… I guess every student writing a large (orchestra) piece has that feeling…? Well, I anyway had a long lesson as I had so much questions and Hannu managed once again to make good remarks and give good ideas what I could do with my orchestra piece.

Getting Flyers Ready

Thursday April 17th. This whole day has been dedicated to getting the flyers done for my composition concert. I wanted to get them done today so that I can hand it out to people at church during Easter (next weekend).

But there were a few complications. I wrote to our (Tampering’s) graphic designer Ida Sokka and asked if she had the flyer ready yet and she replied “I sent it to you already”. Well turned out that the email had somehow managed to loose it, and I never got it! Ida commented “oh that explains why you never said thank you” with a smile. So funny when you notice these misunderstandings…!

So Ida sent me the flyer, but I didn’t first notice there was a mistake: the date was wrong! This turned out to be my bad, because I had sent her the wrong date by mistake (no idea how that could happen, so embarrassing! I’ll blame my dyslexia…). Ida was so nice and managed to correct the date within a few hours, and more over added more wonderful colours to the poster so it became even better!

Now having the right poster I hurried off to school for getting it printed by our PR department. It’s great that my concert is in co-operation with TAMK, because it helps a lot with printing costs of advertising and flyers!

After having got everything done I went straight to church for Maundy Thursday mass, and after that I packed my bags and am now sitting in the train heading to Helsinki for my upcoming Easter “holidays”.

Score Reading and Emails

Wednesday April 9th. This morning began with one of my last score reading classes.

Score reading means that I get a score of an orchestra or chamber music piece and am supposed to be able to play it on the piano. The hard part is not only that there are a lot of different instruments and that I have to try to read them all at once (which is hard enough with my slight dyslexia). More over we are supposed to be able to read all different clefs  (such as alto clef for viola and tenor clef for cello), and all different transposing instruments, which can transpose into almost any key. (Note for non-musicians: By transposing instrument is meant an instrument like for instance trumpet in Bb, which means that when there stands a C in the trumpet score, it sounds as Bb, so every note in the score sounds a whole tone lower, which means you have to the whole time play it one tone lower than what is written. Some other instrument, like for instance clarinet in Eb, you have to transpose the line the whole time a small third up. Now imagine how it feels when you have a score with Clarinet in Eb, an other clarinet in A, French Horn in F, violins, violas (with a different clef), cello and contra bass (which in it’s turn transposes an octave up) and you are supposed to read what is going on in all these voices at the same time!). Everybody keeps saying “oh, it’s not that hard for you, you are a pianist anyway!” but I have to say; this has nothing with pianism to do. My friend Matilda is a violinist, and I have to say that we are more or less as good (or bad) in score reading anyway. Score reading isn’t a very common subject, only composers and conductors have to study it. (Although I heard it’s not compulsory anymore for conductor students at the Sibelius Academy, which surprises me very much!)

Anyway, so this morning I came an hour earlier to the classroom and was given a 4 page extract from Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde. But I have to say, although Wagner has a lot of transposing instruments (and also rare ones like horns in Db) I really like Wagner when it comes to score reading! It’s quite funny how it sounds like nothing while I’m transposing something wrong and you have no idea what should be going on in the music, but at once when I get all notes exactly into place, it sound absolutely fantastic! That is the best reward ever!

After my 30 minute score reading class I had lunch and was writing emails the whole rest of the afternoon until a seminar about contemporary piano music began at 16.15. There is SO MUCH to take care of as I have my own composition concert coming up on the 14.5! I have to find altogether 30 musicians for performing my pieces, a sound technician, a concert hostess, a light man, plan rehearsal schedules which are supposed to suit all people and many more things… So this afternoon I once again used 3 hours only for email for planning one concert. Getting a bit worried about the amount of work the upcoming festival of new music “TampeRinging” 20-24.8 will be, which I will be arranging together with Henri Sokka and Matilda Seppälä and other Tampering members.

Anyway, at 16.15 it was time for a seminar about all kind of experimental piano music, after that quickly home to change clothes before the opening of the already nationally established new music festival Tampere Biennale 2014.

Meeting up with the Music Technologist

Monday the 7th of April. I was really exhausted this morning after the weekend. (I still went to church after the concert yesterday, and after church we had choir practice until 21.30…) My calendar showed a free morning so I did nothing. Until Petrus Tuisku called me and I suddenly remembered we had agreed to have a meeting at 15.00 but I had forgotten to write it into my calendar! That’s how it goes if I don’t write something in m calendar, I forget it! Anyway, luckily Petrus had time o meet up 30 min later, so it wasn’t a problem.

Petrus Tuisku is studying music technology at Tampere Conservatory and he will be recording my upcoming composition concert on the 14th of May. So we met up for discussing what kind of music the concert will contain and how it will be recorded. I am so happy I got a music technologist to help me, because I will have two pieces for flute and electronics, and electronics always make me really nervous, because they NEVER work as they should. But I usually never know why, while music technology students figure it out within no time. So I’m very thankful Petrus agreed to help me with this concert. The recording will also be part of his studies (the students of music technology have to record a live concert), but it wouldn’t have had to be such a “complex” concert as mine is; flute and surround electronics, quintet, ensemble, solo song with an orchestra and choir. Well, at least he will get to use all his skills! We discussed what kinds of microphones are most suitable and how Petrus will be positioning them and other technical stuff. I’m so glad this concert will be recorded properly!

Dance Theatre Triumph

Thursday the 27th of March. The (new) day began (after having slept 5h) with a phone call at around 11 in the morning “Hey, you don’t seem to have transposed the clarinet part in Dagbok, have you?” Yep, right he was! So as quickly as possible I transposed the clarinet part and sent if off once again.

The best thing about this morning was that I THOUGHT I had to go to a pedagogic seminar, but then noticed I have done that course already, so I had all afternoon FREE! But I was so exhausted by yesterday’s achievements so I actually didn’t get much done the whole afternoon.

At 18.00 there was a meeting for the upcoming  Korvat Auki happening RRR!!! on the 17th of May in Helsinki. I will have my piece Loco for solo viola in that concert, together with a dance choreography made by my friend Liisa Oikkonen. But todays meeting was in Helsinki, so Liisa was attending it (live) while I only attended the first 40 min via skype.

I left the meeting (skype) early because I wanted to make it to the last performance of the dance theatre Triumph starting at 19.00, and running together with my cellist friend Bella we made it just on time. (Luckily everything in Tampere is close!)

Triumph is a wonderful piece of dance-drama, choreographed by Ari Numminen to the music of our teacher Jouni Kaipainen. In the production there are four dancers on stage and also a string quartet playing live all music, Kaipainens string quartets. The piece is very fascinating, touching, beautiful yet raw and provocative. Numminen held a seminar for us in November where he told that he was asked to make a choreography saluting “old” dancers going in pension. He told us that his choreography is much about the relationship between art and prostitution. What he means is that being an artist is about giving something very personal of your self to the audience, and the line between art and psychological prostitution is very fine.

I simply love Ari Numminens choreography, his way of using the dancers and his way of visual thinking! I found his choice of theme extremely interesting and moreover it is something my friend Matilda and I have been discussing a lot lately. For me the piece also was against gender rolls and about feminism, or let me say, against chauvinism. In general, it’s a performance that makes you think, which I kind of think is one of the most important things with art. “I think, therefore I am”.

The performance is also very raw. In the show there is one woman (danced by Elina Jakowleva), who doesn’t start bowing to the audience and refuses to go with the flow and please the audience. That annoys the other dancers, and the male figure (by Samuli Roininen) forces her to bow for the audience. Elina at once straightens up again. But he enjoys suppressing her and forces her to bow again, and again. The other two dancers (by Mari Rosendahl and Anniina Kumpuniemi) find it amusing and cheer Samuli on. Elina keeps straightening up after every time she has been forced to bow. Samuli changes position and stands behind Elina instead and pretends like if he was taking her from behind, suppressing her even more and the other two dancers jeer on. Then they force Elina to walk of stage with them. At the stairs they push her very harshly down the stairs so that she almost falls and breaks her nose. Then Samuli hits her and throws her out through a side door and you hear her fall down a flight of stairs while screaming. Other dancers continue smiling to the audience.

At this point I was crying, both times I saw the show. For me this is exactly what our society today is about. Society doesn’t like strong women, and sexual assault and suppression is used for humiliation and decreasing any higher status a woman has achieved. And then we have of course also general humiliation of women by sexual assault, like all the gang rape cases in the past years (in India and New Zealand etc). Even though I was crying during the show I was happy about the scene, happy about someone standing up and showing us, the audience, what is happening in the world. And I have to say; I was even happier that it was a male choreographer who stood up for us women. Because that is where the change begins; it’s not about us women having to “win” our selves our rights, society has to change so that everyone, both men and women, believe and understand that we all have the same rights.

Dance choreographer Ari Numminen after the show.
© Cecilia Damström

A Day of Piano Music

Tuesday the 25th of March. Today I had a presentation about Shostakovich and Khachaturian piano music for young students, which I hadn’t had time to prepare before this morning. So I prepared the presentation, went to my own piano class at 10 with Risto Kyrö (where we went through my piano piece Piano Delirium, which I’m playing at tomorrows Korvat Auki Tampere concert), went for a short while to the practise of the production Bus number 13 (where five of my pieces are in), lunch, went to the library for finding sheet music for the presentation, presentation 14.30-16, teaching my own piano pupil 16-17, practising for tomorrows concert, church at 18 (as I missed mass on Sunday because of work). I got a message if I could get the orchestra parts ready for my song cycle Dagbok by today (as it will be played this weekend at Pirkanmaa Pinnas conducting course, which I now will be attending my self as well!), but it was simply impossible to get them ready before tomorrows concert.

Concert Producing on the Train

Monday the 24th of March. I slept about 2 hours, got up for work (making fake tattoos for children), packed all my belongings and tax-free shopping, put my mascot suite into the laundry, said goodbye to Nonna, ate lunch on board and ran off for the 12.06 train to Tampere.

All the train ride I was loading down the CV:s of all the composers in the Korvat Auki Tampere concert next Wednesday, calling them and asking if they want me to add their soundcloud addresses… And then at Riihimäki (not even half way) the train broke down! And the conductor said we have 2 mins time to change to the slower local train which was just at Riihimäki station… So I ran with all my belongings (a backpack, 2 enormous plastic bags and a handbag) to the next train, which unfortunately was very very full and didn’t either have Internet. Luckily I had brought my own Internet, and managed to get the whole programme ready and sent on for correction and after that sent on to Tampere Biennales graphic designer Manu Alakarhu. (I just love it when the train company charges almost full prize (19 euro for students) for a train that brakes down and makes you change to the slower train (worth 13 euro) without ever giving back any change…  And these kind of things happen all the time to the train company!)

Finally got to Tampere at half past two. As the program was done, I decided to have a free afternoon. I went for a walk with my composer friend Matilda Seppälä and discussed her new orchestra piece, went for lunch and then went for a short walk with my cellist friend Bella. I was so exhausted that I went to bed at 7.30 PM!

Oh dear oh dear…

March 20th. They called from the ship today and asked if I want to come to work from Saturday to Monday, one cruise to Stockholm as a children’s entertainer. I actually really wouldn’t have time at the moment but I spent ALL my money on my Sweden trip, so I had to accept this job offer. But it means I will lose 48 hours of working time for school…

And like if this wasn’t enough, my friend who was supposed to take care of the up-coming Korvat Auki concert next Wednesday, said he is not feeling well at all and can’t cope with the concert, so I took the responsibility for that as well. On top of my workload (which is actually for two people, not one).

So concert arrangement tasks for the next few days will be:

Emailing all composers (six including me) and ask for theis CVs and a short programme note, calling Tampere Biennale and the library Metso for asking what has and hasn’t been agreed on, make a facebook event, check with all musicians that they really can come the concert at the given time, get all the logos (Tampering, Korvat Auki, TAMK) for the program booklet, make a program booklet, make sure I have a stage manager (road man), check there is a page turner for the pianists, book the zoom recorder from our school, arrange someone to take care of the recoring, some one to hand out the flowers, some one to take photos… Well yes, I guess you get the picture, there are a lot of small things to think of, in addition to that I’m going to play my own composition (Piano Delirium) at the concert and should practise piano at some point… Oh yes did I mention that I’m also supposed to be in charge of the next Korvat Auki concert on the 26th of April and then of course I’m organizing my own composition concert on the 14th of May!

Well, I guess a composers gotta do what a composers gotta do. Wish me luck that I’m alive by the end of May!