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…