An early start:
BORN in Helsinki, Finland 1954 into a family where music - both classical, jazz and ethnic - was a everyday part of life, Carita began to play the piano very early in life. As her mother was a good pianist, playing almost anything by ear, Carita consequently imitated her mother and one could say that was the start of her career in music.
At the age of 9 she was admitted into the Sibelius Academy Youth Department and thus began her professional studies in music.
Studies, musical influences and first records:
In the 60´s and 70´s the studies were still strictly classical, but Carita kept up her playing by ear and listening to and singing popular music, jazz and folk music. She was also strongly influenced by flamenco and other latin music as well as other ethnical styles already in her early teens. That was also the time she met her friend and singing partner, Marianne Nyman (later Wiik) and together their Duo was performing on TV, recording and generally performing in folk clubs etc. Soon Mikael (Johansson) Wiik was joining them and this trio was going to be an important part of Carita´s first record, the LP We are what we do (1973). This record won the ”Best Record”- award of the Finnish Broadcasting Company in 1974. Mikael was by that time a producer at EMI, who released Carita´s first two LP´s with her own music. (Toinen Levy, 1974).
The success of the first record led to Carita participating in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with Keep me warm by well-known jazz musician Eero Koivistoinen. On her records Carita had been working with some of Finland´s best jazz musicians and this resulted in her giving a concert at Pori Jazz the same year with her own music.
The 70´s: start of a broad musicianship:
In the 70´s Carita already carried out many of the musical ideas and genres she was later on going to repeatedly come back to:
She wrote her first theatre music: Shakespeare´s Romeo and Juliet, performed at the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki 1976. She also composed her first two Song Cycles: the classical Dagen svalnar (1977) for Soprano and Piano to poems by Edith Södergran and Kuuntelen, vieras (1979) to Japanese tanka poems (finnish transl. Tuomas Anhava) for the Duo Carita Holmström & Teppo Hauta-aho ( Double Bass). This Duo was to make two records (Two Faces 1980 and DUO! 1994) and perform together for 40 years!
In 1979 Carita made her diploma in classical piano playing at the Sibelius Academy. In 1976 she started her long career as a pedagogue, being one of the pioneers in alternative piano teaching, developing methods in a.o. ear-training, improvisation, free accompaniment and keyboard harmony.
The 80´s and 90´s: musicals, chamber music, records, duo concerts, Players Unlimited:
After giving her debut concert as a pianist in 1981, Carita began to concentrate more and more on composing and performing with her Duo together with bass player and composer Teppo Hauta-aho.
They were touring in Scandinavia and performing on music festivals. Together with actor Dick Idman they also performed a musical play for children, “Kuun kultainen sävel/ Månens gyllene klang”, composed by Carita to a text by Inkeri Pitkäranta. During the 80´s Carita also formed the octet “Players Unlimited” consisting of a string quartet, two percussionists, double bass and Carita herself as singer, pianist and guitarist. In 1990 they released the record “Time of Growing”.On the record were featured two of Carita´s song cycles: “In Time of Growing”to poems by the Nigerian Nobelist Wole Soyinka and “Tällainen olen, maailmani” for female voice and string quartet to poems by Finnish Kosti Sironen together with other songs by Carita and also George Gershwin.
In the 90´s Carita composed three important works for the stage:” Vuorenhaltijan salaisuus”, a musical for children (1992) to book by Inkeri Pitkäranta, performed at the Helsinki Children´s Festival, a wordless chamber opera to libretto by Robert Shure “The Lunatic Express”(1995, Helsinki National Opera) and the musical “Blyton Rock”( 1996) to book by Anders Larsson.
Other important works of these decades were the Song Cycles “Livets namn”(1992) for soprano, harp and cello (poems by Gunnar Björling), “Dolls”(1997) to poems by Margaret Atwood and “Whatever You do, Life is Hell!” to poems by Wendy Cope (1995) , a suite for solo bassoon,” The Touring Musician”(1992) and “Three Interludes”(1991) for marimba and piano trio.
2000- …:works for stage, string quartet, solo organ, choir and solo performances….
Carita was to extend her composing for stage to music for dance. Working together with the “Glims & Gloms Dance Theatre”, she composed and performed music to Tuomo Railo´s choreographies “Näkki”(2004; Kuopio Dance Festival) and “Suurperhe” (2006; Helsinki Festival). In between she also composed the musical “Kick”for the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki (2003) to book by Marina Meinander. This musical was also translated into German and performed in Germany 2005. During this time she was also writing a solo work for the organ, Aspects du Printemps” (2004) for Jan Lehtola and the string quartet “Catacombs”( 2006) for Meta4.
Among her choir works could be mentioned “Plumeria acutifolia”(2003) for mixed choir (poems Tua Forsström),”Inget händer mer än en gång” for female choir (2012 to poems by Nobelist Wislawa Szymborska and finnish-swedish Solveig von Schoultz) and “Carpe diem”(2004) for 5 voices a cappella.
In 2010 Carita released her CD “My Diary of Songs”, returning to her singer-songwriter role from the 70´s, writing her own English lyrics. On this record we can also hear Marianne and Mikael, her friends from the first two records.
Wanting to challenge herself as a performer Carita also has been performing doing solo concerts as a singer, pianist and guitarist under the heading “A Woman, a Piano and a Guitar”.( “Nainen, piano ja kitara”).
Meeting the poetry of Szymborska:
In 2003-04 Carita was co-operating with prof. Sture Allén of the Nobel Committee to do some lectures/performances of the poetry of some Nobelists together with the actress Irene Lindh and soprano Vendela Duclos. She became fascinated with Wislawa Szymborska´s poetry and this eventually led to the staged music performance “UNDER – Därför lever vi!” 8 years later in Finland (“ A MIRACLE – thus we are alive!”) together with actor and musician friends Martina Roos, Niklas Häggblom and Tom Salomonsen and director Anna Simberg. (2012)
First in the world….
Alongside all this she has also developed piano pedagogy, giving lectures and demonstrations and work-shops She was a.o. a lecturer at the Nordic Piano Congress in Helsinki 2004 with “Aspects on and Working Methods in teaching Improvisation”. She also started the pedagogy class of Free Accompaniment in the Sibelius Academy Piano Department in 1991, being thus the first of that kind in the world.