EVENTS. Jauna Muzika 2006, April 18-22

Lithuanian electronic music scene in "Jauna Muzika" receives its long awaited attention and will be presented at a new level and high standard, and on an equal footing with personalities from the international electronic music scene. Three original projects will receive their premieres on April 19 and 22: Inductance by Gintaras Sodeika, Jouissance by Ramūnas Motiekaitis, and a programme performed by the Laptop Quartet "20, 21" led by Arturas Bumšteinas.

Ramūnas Motiekaitis' Jouissance invites to experience the hedonistic pleasure of immersing in a space of sounds and images (visuals by Paulius Sluškonis). In a similar way, the idea of Inductance by Gintaras Sodeika is, according to its author, first of all related to the physiological meaning of the term 'induction': the music arises from the excitation and suppression (positive or negative induction) of nerve centers.

"The concert as an exposition or a retrospective of musical graphic notation" - is how the members of the Laptop Quartet "20, 21" describe their boundary-crossing project (April 22), featuring compositions by James Tenney, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Cornelius Cardew, Vytautas V. Jurgutis, Tomas Grunskis and Arturas Bumšteinas. Graphic material exposed to the public at the same time will be read as a musical text, becoming on-the-spot sound.

Guest performers of the festival - Latvian Radio Chamber Singers with Flemish cellist Arne Deforce, and the Smith Quartet from the UK - will perform in more usual concert settings. Alongside works by Kaija Saariaho, Jonathan Harvey, Portuguese composers António Pinho Vargas and João Pedro Oliveira, a new interpretation of Vytautas V. Jurgutis' Terra tecta (2004), and three entirely new electroacoustic compositions by Lithuanian composers will be presented (April 20 and 21). Žibuoklė Martinaitytė founds her Illusions of Time and Space for string quartet and tape on a model of one of the newly discovered helical galaxies; Egidija Medekšaitė makes her festival début with the composition Panchami for string quartet and tape, inspired by the modes of Indian ragas; Rytis Mažulis continues his microtonal studies in the work with the Buddhist title Form is Emptiness for 12 voices, cello and electronics.

Lithuanian Music Link No. 12