composition: Linda Leimane
mastering: Andrejs Eigus

For SHAPE Platform’s crackaud.io takeover, Leimane has created a new work of haunting dronescapes, spectral vocal incantations and experimental electronics.

On the piece, entitled Through the Echelons of Eternity, Leimane says: “In this work, I give particular importance to the voices of live individuals, their heartbeats and hints to social gatherings with common goals: destroy, defend or celebrate with symphony.”

“To achieve this technically I played with suspense and accumulation, as well as planar motion. Although I wanted to create some beauty, in this time when the enemy of humanity openly shows its ugly face, this work is my personal shelter and appeasement, my shot in the head of cruelty, as well as my unshakable faith in justice.”

Linda Leimane is a member of SHAPE Platform’s 2021 roster. The seven-year initiative is a platform for innovative music and audiovisual art, co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. Leimane’s contribution is presented by Skaņu Mežs Festival in Riga, Latvia.

Through The Echelons of Eternity (short)

Written by Ronan Goron

Spirals winding from the screen
They're never telling me it's going well
And I heard every melody was copyrighted 
and bought off by the cartel
And I ran outward from the garden
through the threshold to see if I could tell

Hold on, are we going down? 'Cause I'm going down, if the air is clear and warm
Hey now, are we going down? Would you say you're down if it's warm out tonight, and if it feels right?

And I learnt every situation is designed
by ivory elites to sell

Going Down

"Four Waiters" from "The Nutcracker and the Rat King"

oboe/English horn, bass clarinet, piccolo trumpet & double bass
Ensemble SurPlus, cond. James Avery

mist ... the furthest point (quartet, 1998)

Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, cond. Lorraine Vaillancourt

Arktos (7 players, 2002)

Nieuw Ensemble, cond. Ed Spanjaard

"Recently the concept of dream has become the most important metaphor for my creative thought. In a dream there is no time for contemplation: while dreaming, we are completely absorbed by the constantly changing images that balance on the knife-edge between continuity and contrast. This metaphor is also connected to Mezzogiorno, the title of which refers to the moment of the day when the sun has reached its zenith, casting the shortest shadows. I have been drawing parallels between the densest moment of the day – that of “mezzogiorno” – and the compactness of a dream.
The flow of Mezzogiorno is linear, but the linearity is always set ambiguously. It is as if the forward striving linearity was an object, entering various contrasting chambers. In other words, the linearity is affected by the „architectural units“ that stand in its way. Thus, the motion is often suspended in favour of space, creating fields of energy and tension." JP 2005


Mezzogiorno (12 players, 2005)

Recorded by Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra (cond. Juozas Domarkas) and State Choir "Vilnius" in the National Philharmonic Hall. Sound Engineer Arūnas Zujus.

Winter Calligraphies for symphony orchestra and mixed choir (2016). Quite a few aspects of my interest in Japanese culture combine in this composition. It’s musical material was influenced by a coincidence that in 2016 we commemorate 20 years since the death of Toru Takemitsu, who happens to be one of my favorite composers. That encouraged my search of particular common attributes between distinct sound quality and modal structures found in Takemitsu’s works and my way of musical thinking and principles of articulation of sound quality. Three Japanese waka poems find their place within this composition. These poems are taken from a classical Japanese anthology of one hundred Japanese waka by one hundred poets  (Ogura Hyakunin Isshu), which consists from verses by poets from the 9th and 10th centuries. All three poems (no. 31, 29, 28) are united by winter, as their main subject. Within the composition they serve as three different calligraphies that depict different apprehensions caused by the same image. While working with these texts I put my biggest effort to deal with their meaning rather than the syllabic structures. However, their meaning cannot be fully transmitted to the Western public due to a language barrier. Therefore, I tried to depict each keyword of these poems into specific textural shapes according to the rhetoric principles of music.

Winter Calligraphies (2016) for symphony orchestra and Mixed choir (Žiemos kaligrafijos)

Santa Bušs : 'One inch of love is an inch of...' for haegeum and string ensemble (2016) : 
Sunghee Lee (haegeum), Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, 
conductor Sharon Choa 

(live recording : Asia Culture Centre, Gwangju, South Korea : 26.11.2016.)

Santa BUŠS 'One inch of love is an inch of...'

Šis ir stāsts par to ko spēj izstrādāt pavasaris ar prātu!!
(no puses jau ir pavisam cits stāsts, ja nevar izturēt sāc ar pusi :D 2m41s aptuveni! :P )

MickyTr - 2Peaces.mp3

Una Mujer Derramada (A Woman Spilled)for voice and orchestra. Created in collaboration with singer and poet Amyra León. Co-commissioned by l’Orchestre national Montpellier Occitanie (Opéra National Montpellier) and Orchestre de Chambre de Paris (Théâtre du Châtelet). Developed through an ENOA residency at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.

Working in close collaboration, Sivan Eldar composed the orchestral score, Amyra León composed the text, and together they composed the vocals, which serve as the basis for Amyra’s performance. 

Excerpts from the premiere at Opéra Berlioz, Montpellier, France, November 2019. Conducted by Magnus Fryklund. Recorded by Romain Roux. More info here: sivaneldar.com/mujer-derramada

"Four Waiters" from "The Nutcracker and the Rat King"

Linda Leimane

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