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Celka Ojakangas

@celkypelky

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Finnish-American composer 🇫🇮 🇺🇸 /bird person 🦜 /Professor of 🎶
Faculty: @oxycollegemusic @glendalecollege
🎨Fun artistic side project: @celkascloset

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Celebrating 5 years with my best friend today! Presently out on a hike in the Joshua trees. ❤️💃 🕺🏼 🦜 🌵 #anniversary taken in Joshua Tree/Mojave Desert by @celkypelky

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a day ago

🍎 #soundon by @celkypelky

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4 days ago

Thank you to the Albany Symphony (@albanysym ) and @maestrodavidalanmiller for a fabulous weekend spent in the Capitol region, capped with a fantastic concert that featured the William Tell Overture, Pines of Rome, the Korngold violin concerto (played excellently by @amarynolmedaviolin !!!), and the premiere of my latest piece “Shuffle!” I deeply appreciate this group’s patience and dedication to getting my experimental ideas off of the ground.

Pictured here are a few quirky pictures of me talking about my piece before the performance. Couldn’t decide between any of them so I’m posting all 5 of them.

Also pictured: a hug after the premiere, a shot of my score just before its first rehearsal in @palacealbany , and a picture from just before my piece “Toons” was finally performed for a second time…by Albany Symphony musicians! (They knocked it OUT OF THE PARK!!)

Here’s to a successful 2026-2027 Albany Symphony season! It was such a privilege to work with you all and I hope to see at least some of you sometime soon! 🎶 taken in Palace Theatre by @celkypelky

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13 days ago

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20 days ago

Hear from composer Celka Ojakangas (@celkypelky) on her new work, Shuffle 🎶

Experience the world premiere of Shuffle with your Albany Symphony at Opening Night on October 3 at 7:30 PM at the Palace Theatre. You won’t want to miss it! by @celkypelky

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22 days ago

I’m flying home from a week spent in Ketchikan, Alaska, where I participated in the first ever Composer Residency hosted by @ketchikan_arts_council and @islandmusicketchikan ! It was a welcome reprieve from the heat and metropolis of LA, and was filled with misty mountain views and the smell of silver salmon swimming upstream to spawn.

The main goal of this residency was to show the locals what a composer is and can be. The Ketchikan residents with whom I interacted have a deep appreciation and curiosity for art of all kinds. Locals who came to my presentations at the public library and @bawdenstbrewing beamed with pride as they discussed their relationship to the painters, sculptors, and graphic designers in their area, many of whom were their friends. The community clearly upholds and embraces their local artists, a trait which I deeply admire and which I understand now more than ever is necessary to maintaining the strength of a town’s community.

A special thanks goes out to Kathleen Light (executive director of the Ketchikan Area Arts and Humanities Council) and my old friend (and undergraduate college advisor!) Christopher Koch for their kindness and hospitality. I hope my interaction helped pave the way for more composer residencies to come.

Oh, and fun fact - “Ketchikan” is the anglicized version of the Tlingit word for “the thundering wings of an eagle.” One local (Captain Jeff Karlson, head of @lighthouseexcursions and the Ketchikan Chamber Orchestra) said that it’s the onomatopoeia of the sound of an eagle’s wings as it takes off from its roost. I’ve had a very 🦅-forward year! taken in Ketchikan, Alaska by @celkypelky

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a month ago

This August, I:
1. Rode a horse into Yellowstone
2. Caught the world’s tiniest and most disgruntled fish in Yellowstone
3. Finished another orchestral composition (this picture is of a draft; not the final product)
4. Had diagnostic surgery. (No rogue endometrium; yay!)

And now we’re “Back to School,” teaching three classes at GCC this semester. (I’ll be back at Oxy in the spring.)

Got some fun fall stuff planned; will be sharing soon! by @celkypelky

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2 months ago

“Party in a Cubist Roadhouse” starts with a trio of soloists - the principals of the violin and cello sections interact with a series of plucked glissandos (I like to call them “doinks”) that I imagine as overhearing abstract beings having a conversation. But other times it sounds to me like maybe someone has an itchy brain and is trying to remember something. Whatever it sounds like (I of course encourage anyone to imagine what they will), it ends with an interruption of the orchestra “waking up,” with Lutoslawski-inspired pizzicato sections, bleeps and bloops from a trombone and electric keyboard, as well as a woodblock line (that will eventually evolve into the main theme) and a “ride pattern” played out-of-time.

I had this goofy idea late last night, so I made it. 😅I also just made a score video that you can find in my Linktree in my bio - go check it out!

This performance is by the 2025 @aspenmusicfest ‘s Conducting Academy Orchestra; @rferromusic, Conductor. by @celkypelky

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2 months ago

“Party in a Cubist Roadhouse” starts with sounds and ideas that I thought would populate the sound world of a surrealist party getting started. String boings, Nancarrow-like beeps and boops, and groans from the brass slowly congeal into a mysterious harmonic pad of sparkling, metallic resonance. Multiple themes and grooves percolate throughout the orchestra and soon culminate in a proud, cinematic brass moment that then sends us spiraling towards full-on party mayhem.

The first video in this post is from when the mayhem is cranking up, obviously! 🎉

Performed this year by @aspenmusicfest ‘s ACA orchestra; @rferromusic, conductor.

The full video to this score can be found on YouTube. (Link available in Bio via Linktree.) by @celkypelky

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2 months ago

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3 months ago

We roadtripped from Aspen all the way back to Los Angeles! It was a delightful, beautiful, successful experiment. The nature of the west is so gorgeous - how anyone could witness it and not want to preserve it is beyond me. We are nothing without the earth that raised us! ⛰️

The music of this video is from my composition “Party in a Cubist Roadhouse” as performed by the Aspen Conducting Academy Orchestra with Ricardo Ferro, conductor. 🎶🙂 (I kept imagining a montage set to the piece throughout the trip and couldn’t resist, so here it is!) @aspenmusicfest #americanwest taken in The American West by @celkypelky

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3 months ago

Some photos from @aspenmusicfest part 2: the Druckman Prize! Grateful as always; I can’t wait to see my good friends and colleagues again sometime soon. ❤️🎶 🏔️

Shout out to @rferromusic for excellently conducting my crazy piece! taken in Aspen Music Festival and School by @celkypelky

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3 months ago