Finnish Composer Cecilia Damstrom Continues to Create Amid Long-Term Lyme Disease Effects

In a rehearsal for the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra’s opening of its autumn 2026 season, composer Cecilia Damström watched her new work Information come to life on the stage. The piece, which debuted in the orchestra’s concert hall, uses Morse‑code signals to critique the dangers of disinformation.

Damström’s creative rhythm has been reshaped by a serious illness. After a tick bite in late 2024, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease and tick‑borne encephalitis, leaving her with chronic headaches, general weakness and movement difficulties. For the first eight months after diagnosis she could not write music at all. According to YLE News, she now structures her work around her symptoms, often beginning composition sessions after dusk because of sensitivity to bright light. During intense creative bursts she can devote an entire week to music, keeping social interaction to a minimum.

The 38‑year‑old composer is one of Finland’s most frequently commissioned artists. She won the Teosto Prize in 2022 for her orchestral work ICE, which was performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, and has been nominated for the Nordic Council Music Prize. Over her career she has produced roughly one hundred works, many accompanied by program notes that tackle climate change, biodiversity loss, overconsumption and equality. Her first composition was a piano piece inspired by the Kosovo war, written after she saw television footage of the conflict as a child.

Information was conceived as a response to the spread of false information. While working on the piece, Damström read 25 books, including Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro’s Putin’s Trolls, which examines Russia’s information warfare. The composition encodes messages in Morse code; the orchestra plays them mechanically, and at one point the word “unity” is spelled out as the previously overlapping signals begin to synchronize. She also composed an opera during her illness, although she could not travel to London to attend the premiere of ICE.

Beyond Information, Damström is developing a forty‑minute orchestral work about Finnish forests, which she continues to work on whenever her health permits. The Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2026‑27 season, which includes her new piece, has been announced and tickets for the autumn concerts go on sale in August. Damström’s ongoing work demonstrates that a composer can continue to produce socially engaged music even while managing long‑term health challenges, and her forest‑themed piece is expected to enter the program in the coming months.