Loreta Narvilaitė

Loreta Narvilaitė (b.1965) studied music theory at the Stasys Šimkus Conservatory in Klaipėda, also taking lessons in composition with Jonas Paulikas (1980-84). She continued her composition studies at the Lithuanian Academy of Music under Prof. Julius Juzeliūnas, from which she graduated in 1989 and finished her assistantship period in 1996. She currently teaches at the Stasys Šimkus Conservatory in Klaipėda, serves as the Deputy Director for Culture at the Klaipėda Concert Hall, and is the Artistic Director of the festivals "Music of Changes", "Salve Musica", "Klaipėda Music Spring" and "Klaipėda Carillon Festival" organized by the Klaipėda Concert Hall.

From 1994 to 1999 Loreta Narvilaitė initiated and organized (as its artistic director) the "Kopa" new music festival in Klaipėda. Her music has been performed at a number of international music festivals in Lithuania and abroad, such as "ppIANISSIMO" (Sofia), "Arsenals" (Riga), "Youth Music Forum" (Kiev), "Festival Alexandre Paley et ses amis" (Moulin d'Andé, France), "Sounds of Sweden", "Lithuanian Music Spring", "Gaida", "Jauna muzika" (Vilnius), "Iš arti" (Kaunas), "Marių klavyrai", "Klaipėda Music Spring", "Kopa", "Music Returns", "Music of Changes" (Klaipėda), "Youth Chamber Music Days" (Druskininkai). In 2002, 2003 and 2004 she was composer-in-residence at the Visby International Centre for Composers (Gotland, Sweden).

The rational principles of structuring, characteristic of her musical idiom, came to the fore as early as in the years of study at the Academy. From her earliest works, such as "Passing Note" for 15 strings (1990), "Con variationi" for brass quintet (1990) and "Nona" for organ (1991), she has displayed a proclivity towards the strict, orderly calculated formal design derived, in most cases, from the series of numbers or graphic shape of linear progressions. At the same time this did not straitjacket her artistic intuition, leaving room also for her remarkable creative imagination.

The titles of her later instrumental compositions reveal her poetic inspirations. "Morning Dew Was Falling" for instrumental ensemble (1996) radiates the nostalgic light veiled, as Narvilaitė put it, into a 'longing for the unattainable'. The theme of "Here Sings the Wind" for oboe and symphony orchestra (2003) is set forth in the poem by Sigitas Geda (chosen as an epigraph by the composer), where an unexpected twist of meaning opens up timeless dimensions within the 'cubist' space of an apartment house. "Open City" for symphony orchestra (1996) is an evidence of her increasing preoccupation with the images of urban space and the hurried urban dweller, pausing for a moment of pensive repose.