Stream

“While on a work trip in St. Petersburg in February 2017, I suddenly fell seriously ill. I was taken to a hospital, where only the instant and effective care by the Russian doctors and nurses saved my life. During one of the operations, I became partly conscious, and sensed I was being operated – for a moment, the anaesthesia was falling short. It didn’t hurt. Instead, I saw sounds that I had not seen before, and heard changing shapes in fluctuating colours, that I had never heard before. It was an experience that I can't describe well enough with words.
During my recovery in the hospital, I got a message from my friend and colleague, Jovanka Trbojevic. She urged me to live on, and joked how we had promised to each other to walk in lockstep to a pub from concerts, when we would be octogenarians.
When I started writing a work for a string orchestra in early May 2017, I wasn't aware of how far Jovanka’s own illness had progressed. Only days later, her death message reached me, and left me and all her other friends devastated. After that this music just streamed out of me. It is not a picture of my struggle on the operating table, but a stream of music, that had to flow free, in the memory of Jovanka.
Stream has four movements (Parestesia – Kinestesia – Anestesia – Synestesia) that are played without a pause. It lasts ca. 12 minutes. The work was commissioned by Sinfonietta Lentua and supported by Teosto.”
(Osmo Tapio Räihälä)