I once came across Andrei Pleșu’s idea of “writing at the counter”: you create when a commission comes in. Like a jukebox — someone presses a button, and you deliver the “product.”
And yet, if you live from your art, how often can it really be otherwise?

But there’s another kind of input. Not the pragmatic one, but something more elusive — an emotion, a story, a wound, a question that reaches you whether you’re ready or not. Then you compose not because you must, but because silence would be heavier than sound.

That’s how this piece was born. A sort of remedy written, without intention, for myself.
I composed it for the theatre play “Pe limba ta” (In Your Own Tongue) by Mihaela Michailov, directed by Radu Apostol.
The music connected naturally with the main character — a person without a voice.
Can you imagine what it means to be unable to say what’s on your heart?
To “speak” in a language that only a few can understand?

In a way, we all carry that within us — a place of the unspoken.
Not because we want to hide it, but because it simply doesn’t fit into words.
Music, sometimes, is the only way out.
It says what we cannot.

And when someone, listening, feels that same unspoken truth — that’s the miracle.

That’s why music “on commission” is never just a commission.
Something of yourself always seeps in — sometimes at odds with the project, sometimes saving it.
But that’s the most beautiful risk: that sometimes you don’t write the music you want to hear, but the one you need to hear.

PE LIMBA TA (full main theme)

Vapor Tuning

Praxis Constellations of Echo

This practice consists of recording and documenting performance under the following principles:

Rule 1: Each performance and its recording shall exist only once. No interruption, no repetition.

Rule 2: The content must not be determined in advance.

Rule 3: The performer shall close their eyes.

Rule 4: Beyond the initial recording, subsequent composition may arise in response, as an echo.

Rule 5: A work attains completion only when published on the Internet, with the date of its creation. If it remains unpublished, all traces must be erased. The praxis may occur only once per day.

「星座の反響」実験　praxis Constellations of Echo

ルールに基づき、演奏を記録、録音する。

ルール１：演奏や録音は一度きり。中断したり、弾き直しをしてはならない。

ルール２：内容を規定する準備をしてはならない。

ルール3：目をつむる。

ルール4：最初に記録、録音した範囲以外には、付随する作曲を施しても良い。

ルール5：その日のうちに日付とともにインターネットに公開されたものを完成とし、公開しない場合完全に記録を消去する。実験は一日に一度のみ。

2025.09.18

Constellations of Echo 2025.09.23

Resonant Depth for Lumenfall 2025

Constellations of Echo 2025.09.26

The piece is a musical tribute to the composer's mother who passed away in 2023. While illnesses bring sadness and struggles, life ends and transforms. The title means the four main elements along the process. SIgh, a symbol of sadness, is represented by descending glissandi. Breath, a symbol of life, is represented by air noise. They develop and progress into a variety of outbursts and textures. All of these are ended by the inevitable. BUt her life continues in form of DNA, generating energy quietly in the mitochondrion of every cell in the composer's body. As she converted to Christianity at the end of her life, the hymn Amazing Grace is used as a source material to conclude the piece. 

Premiered by Hong Kong City Chamber Orchestra. 
Conducted by Francis Kan

4/30/2025
Recorded by RTHK

Sigh, Breath, Mitochondrion and Grace for chamber orchestra (2025)

Performed by Ensemble Fractales:
Renata Kambarova, flutes
Yuko Fukumae, clarinets
Gian Ponte, piano 
Marion Borgel, violin/viola
Merryl Havard, cello
Сommissioned by Centre Henri Pousseur
Premiered at Festival Images Sonores, La Boverie Liège

Alexander Khubeev -  Labyrinths of Glass Dreams (Ensemble Fractales) [2025]

Constellations of Echo 2025.11.14

Violin : Tatsuki Narita
Conductor : Yoichi Sugiyama
New Japan Philharmonic
commissioned by Suntory Foundation for Arts
use of the recording licensed by Suntory Foundation for Arts

Violin Concerto "On the G string" (2011/2015)

kenji_sakai

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