Music of Changes: The Sonorous Present
- Sept. 11, 2015
Tuesday 15 September, 6 pm
“Desire Machine”
Desire Machine, Evacuation, The Sinking of the Titanic are all titles of the works to be performed at the festival’s opening concert.
Three decades ago composer Šarūnas Nakas produced some of the most unorthodox neo-Dada pieces, curiously titled Merz-machine and Vox-machine, which lead to terming him and other composers of his generation as machinists, and now he took up the festival’s commission to compose the Desire Machine. With this title the composer obviously refers to the term coined by French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari to describe the unconscious machine-like production in various fields of human activity. The piece will be given its world premiere by Mindaugas Bačkus as a solo cellist and the Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra under his artistic direction.
The threatening alarm of wailing sirens will signal the Evacuation, a piece by Remigijus Merkelys of 2004, in which accordionist Raimondas Sviackevičius will appear as a soloist. The Sinking of the Titanic, written by Gavin Bryars between 1969 and 1972, depicts the scene of sinking and breaking ship, while the music played by the band until the last moments before the ship’s submergence continues to reverberate under water… The specially made video artwork by Rimas Sakalauskas will accompany this classic of British experimental music. Vytautas Lukočius will conduct the programme.
Wednesday 16 September, 6 pm
“The Human Voice”
“The tour de force of Raquel Camarinha’s naked voice is the most impressive. Singer and actrice, passing through all the registers of the human voice, from monologue to lyric voice, from laughter to jazz, she performs in every sense of the word.”
A room, a bed, sleeping pills, a telephone, and an abandoned woman: Francis Poulenc’s La Voix humaine is the most quintessential operatic monodrama, where the means of theatre and music join and unite. It is therefore also the best laboratory for an intense work on the stage language of music theatre, where, the words take us into the dark underworld of our secret desires, a world of symbols, dreams and hallucinations. A stage inhabited only by a soprano and a pianist will allow us to stage the conflicts and ambiguities of this dialogue between voice and accompaniment, drama and music, a dialogue that is a love story, too.
Friday 18 September, 2 and 6 pm
“An Experiment with Time”
John William Dunne, aeronautics engineer, soldier, philosopher, and fly-fishing lover, wrote An Experiment with Time in 1927. In Dunne’s work, the past and future, premonitory dreams and dreams that reference neither reminiscence nor anticipation coexist. Daniele Ghisi, the young Italian composer and mathematician, boards this curious time-dilating machine.
How can we escape from the idea, or the illusion, of an irreversible temporal flow? Through aliases projected on screens and electronic databases, this installation accommodates several different series—a day, a year, a life—each considered as a polyrhythm. The central screen represents the writing of the main character’s diary, and will be a journey across its reflexions and thoughts, spanning one full year, and looping seamlessly at the end. The other screens (only active in some specific sections of the video) suggest the presence of two “aliases” experiencing different temporalities (the left one looping through a single day, and the right one living a complete life).
Tuesday 22 September, 6 pm, at the Ground Floor Foyer
“Intersections”
The programme of this concert features four 20th-century works for solo violin, as well as for two and four violins, interspersed with Baroque music interludes. These two strands of music will intertwine in the programme’s final piece Bachvariationen by Mindaugas Urbaitis based on the motivic material that the composer had drawn from Bach’s violin sonatas and partitas. The elements of Baroque music are integrated into the structural logic of minimalist composition, while the feel of natural flow in an endless canon is achieved through the use of imitation technique.
The initiator and main driving force behind this project, violinist Ingrida Armonaitė, sums up the character of this music by quoting Albert Schweitzer: “I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live.”
Friday 25 September, 6 pm
“Music for the End of Time”
The highlight of this concert is the remarkable Quatuor pour la fin du temps by Olivier Messiaen. The composer had described the quartet’s musical language as “essentially immaterial, spiritualised, and Catholic. Certain modes <...> here draw the listener into a sense of the eternity of space or time. Special rhythms, beyond metre, contribute powerfully in dismissing the temporal. (All this is mere striving and childish stammering if one compares it to the overwhelming grandeur of the subject!)”
At the end of the quartet the music dissipates in the ethereal sounds of string instruments at their highest register. It seems to assert the infinite stride of time and life and the timelessness of spiritual values.
The Quatuor will be performed by the FortVio Piano Trio and clarinettist Vytautas Giedraitis, while the ArtVio String Quartet will join in to perform the world premiere of the Third String Quartet by Anatolijus Šenderovas and the ever-popular String Quartet In Loving Memory... by Faustas Latėnas.
Tuesday 29 September, 2 pm and 6 pm
“SISU USIS”. Concert for youth
SISU’s approach exhibits an unquestionable joy of performing whether it is classical contemporary music or works with pop culture references. When SISU hits the stage the audience can expect a full-on attack of all senses. By incorporating visual elements in their performance through the use of state-of-the-art digital technology, they create an artistic space that moves the listeners. Communication is the keyword when SISU performs. With 20 years of experience on the Norwegian and international music scene, SISU is an artistic driving force when it comes to percussion.
The Norwegian percussion trio offers a concert for youth called SISU USIS, which embraces the most varied things – from large to small and from high to low. Tom Nilsson, who conceived the idea and music for this project, describes it in pairs of oppositions: “Inner strength and determination, outer force and resignation.” Come along, have a decent listen, and pitch in!
Thursday 1 October, 6 pm
A concert to mark the International Music Day
“Elongation of Nights”
At the closing concert of the festival the Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra will team up with the SISU Percussion Group, one of Scandinavia’s most prominent contemporary music ensembles. It represents contemporary music of the highest quality, written for SISU by both Norwegian and international composers, and is recognised for its unique musical aesthetics, developed through an open and exploratory attitude towards every musical challenge.
The programme, produced in collaboration between the Lithuanian and Norwegian performers, features works by composers from both countries. It also includes two world premieres written especially for this occasion – one by Lithuanian composer Jurgita Mieželytė and another by Petter Haukås. In addition, the concert is named after the eponymous piece for string orchestra by Justė Janulytė dedicated to her native Vilnius coming into autumn. The layered structure of the piece reminds of lengthening nights and shortening days with the changing seasons.
This dialogue between the strings and percussion instruments will be prudently conducted by Modestas Pitrėnas. “All that one needs is to confide in musicians and provide them with the right kind of inspiration,” said the young conductor in one of his interviews. The International Music Day thus will be marked with the “gathering of kindred spirits, offering a few moments of comforting respite.”
The “Music of Changes” festival introduces a new feature
Each year the “Music of Changes” festival is looking for the new formats and venues of presentation. This year it launches a new series of fringe events – lunch break concerts held right in the middle of your office or institution. Lunch time performances will offer the perfect way to break up a busy day and experience the invigorating effect of funny musical adventures.
The “SISU in the office” concerts will feature the Norwegian percussion trio SISU Percussion Group, performing music by foreign contemporary composers on standard percussion instruments, along with improvisations by the group members on various objects that belong in the office (desks, sheets of paper, pencils, computer keyboard buttons, and whatnot).
See you soon at the “Music of Changes” festival!
KCH information
Compiled by Loreta Narvilaitė