I had a tough time after moving to New York in late August 2010. New York was very different from Champaign, Illinois where I had lived for the 5 years before my move. During this time I was also in emotional turmoil because of some other personal issues. I was constantly thinking and fixating on things I could not get or achieve, and this led to depression. For almost four months I was unable to compose, and I could only make sketches for illusive. Because music is a very personal activity to me, when I am troubled in real life, composing does not go very well.

Two of my previous pieces, June 26th and The Island, were also inspired by specific individuals, just as illusive was inspired by one of my colleagues. There is a difference, however, between the previous two pieces and illusive. The first two pieces were based on past relationships, on memories and events that involved them. In contrast, illusive represents a narrative of my evolving feelings in the present moment as I adjusted to my new life in New York, although the piece is not exactly in chronological order.

illusive is dedicated to a colleague of mine, one who gave me much inspiration and motivation.

Moon Young HA

Moon Young HA - Illusive

The piece was conceived as a part of a larger method-pieces cycle based on the acoustic exploration of spaces and their natural resonant frequencies. Modes_vda was written using the frequencies of the main hall of Vilnius Art Academy (VDA) building, with the idea of turning the building into one natural amplification system itself. The musical form of the piece was created using a complex pitch&tuning system based on the fundamental frequencies, their overtone series (up to the 16th partial) and their ratios, which were all established during a research and testing phase. Then a score was conceived, which uses the fundamental resonant frequencies and their harmonic spectrum as the main pitch and lenght material source.

The music functions in the following way: the nine-piece ensemble is divided into two groups - the "harmonic" and "attacking" instruments. The harmonic group is structurally "scanning" through the main fundamental frequencies and their harmonic spectrum up to the 16th partial, whereas the three attacking instruments (el.guitar, el.piano and trumpet) are outlining particular rhythmical structures within the intense sonic texture.

Andrius Arutiunian

Andrius Arutiunian - modes_VDA

Nyx, for ensemble, was composed in 2015, and it is inspired by Greek primordial goddess of night. The metaphore for Nyx's appearance is the path of the setting sun: the ratios of evening sky and twilight's color frequencies are translated into ratios of various musical intervals. The given pitches are the basis for harmonic progression and overall form of the piece.

Marko Slaviček - NYX

The word “inter” in this piece delineates the interaction between two objects. It is when the actions of a person, the planned sequence of those actions, are influenced by the environment, other people; when a clear plan is distorted in a good sense. When the border between thought and reality is destroyed, when everything comes together.

Dominykas Digimas

Dominykas Digimas - Inter-

With The Semblance of a Garden I wanted to see a melody subsume in an orchestration of its harmony, how an ensemble resonates from a guitar melody, then takes over, losing the melody, thus losing the resonance proper, and being left with its transformation.

Ethan Braun

Ethan Braun - The Semblance Of A Garden

Concerto is just a game was written in the beggining of 2013 and was premiered during the KonCon Spring Festival. I began working on it having an intention of making a semi improvised game piece, but with time the piece gradually evolved into a fully notated score, though I decided to stick to the original title, leaving some open space for my own musical interpretations of such topic. The electronics are entirely based on the samples from Tchaikovsky violin concerto, yet they were processed and edited almost on the verge of totally losing their original identity.

The question that arose whilst working on this piece was a simple and yet a broad one: how much playing together is an act of domination and how much the one of listening and giving space for the other?

Andrius Arutiunian

Andrius Arutiunian - Concerto Is Just A Game

“Canon mensurabilis” is one of instrumental opuses by Rytis Mažulis where the composer bids farewell to the realm of 12 tempered semitones and trades it for the newly opened world of split semitones. The ephemeral, strange, as if “falsely” intoned music commands listener’s attention and tries to win him over; ever more desirable, it casts a spell of its subtle transparent intonations. Among the insubstantial, detached strands of voices in microtonal pitches, wanders the almost inaudible memory of the twelve-sound world deserted by Mažulis. It is the single tempered semitone that has established itself in a consistently ascending sequence of eight quartertones on the initial scheme of the composition. Later on, the windmills of the Messianian spirals of symmetric permutations (interversions) scatter around the tones of this scale, thus producing material for all five voices – structural lines in the composition of the “Canon mensurabilis”. Treated to such a spin, tones settle down on the staffs according to the rigid rhythmical proportions (mensurations) and continue existing henceforth in a mode of a secret inaudible mensuration canon. Only the concordances of perfect consonances (almost subconsciously perceived structural dividing marks of the opuses by Mažulis) punctuate the gravitating palindromes of micro-pitch harmonies.

Gražina Daunoravičienė

Rytis Mažulis - Canon Mensurabilis

The ‘Bluebeard’ tale appears in many variations around the world, the central theme revolving around a bride who having recently married is subsequently tempted to discover a horrific secret behind the forbidden door. The most well known example is of course Bela Bartok's opera Duke Bluebeard's Castle, which takes it source from the French 17th cenruty writer Charles Perraut. The fatal dangers of feminine curiosity have of course had other sources; Eve, Pandora, Psyche and Lot's wife are all examples of mythical women whose curiosity exacted dire consequenses. What is peculiar in the Bluebeard legend and what makes it an intruiging tale, is that the motive is never clear why Bluebeard entrusts the bride with the key that will reveal his horrific past.
I was surprised to stumble on a Cypriot variation of this in a collection of oral folklore recordings made in Cyprus by the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation. Under the title of “To Parymithi tou Vasilea” (The King's Tale), a recording made in the late 70s of a woman from Potami, Athinoula Christou Kyriakou, tells the story of a king who under bizarre circumstances marries his daughter to Satan, who takes her to his underground castle where she enters the 101st ‘forbidden’ room to find dead bodies and half eaten carcasses of animals. I have no idea how this variation of the story with its stange twists came to be told by this woman from Potami, there seem to be both mythological and Christian resonances in it. The tale follows the classic patterns of narrative; having discovered the room, she is subsequently saved by seven brothers, one of whom she marries in the end. They live happily ever after.
In the composition, I use the recording of her speaking voice, stretching out the vowels with computer synthesis until it seems that she is singing the story. The instruments accompany, amplify and elaborate this telling. Towards the middle of the piece her voice almost becomes frozen, the speed of delivery slows down to zero, at the point of the narrative where she opens the secret door. In my interpretation of the story I leave them just after this point where to comfort the young bride after this revelation, the devil dresses up in her father's and mother's clothes. It's an incomplete story but I found it a touching moment to leave the narrative unclosed. For musical purposes at least we do not need the cavalry to come to the rescue.

Yannis Kyriakides

Yannis Kyriakides - Paramyth

Gérard Grisey - Vortex Temporum

Michael Gordon - For Madeline

Michael Gordon - acdc

Dániel Dobos "Dance of spirits" fantasy for viola and piano.

Viola - Monika Kiknadzė
Piano - Marta Finkelštein

Dániel Dobos - Dance Of Spirits

The contemporary music ensemble Synaesthesis, established in Vilnius in 2013, has built a reputation as a daring ensemble that is uncompromisingly dedicated to new music. Having been awarded the Ernst von Siemens Foundation Ensemble Prize in 2020, Synaesthesis continues to widen its reach as a performing entity of considerable renown.

The team of musicians has taken up the mission of introducing works of experimental Lithuanian and foreign composers to audiences around the world. The ensemble’s vision extends beyond the sound into space, light, movement, and narrative — any medium that allows for professionally performed music to become a multidimensional experience and blur the lines between genres.

Synaesthesis | contemporary music ensemble

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