Justė Janulytė
Justė Janulytė (born 1982) is the most remarkable and original composer of the younger generation, whose music is played at prestigious contemporary music festivals around the world. The composer’s credo embodies universal ideas of nature in music: Prolongation of Night (Naktų ilgėjimas, 2009), Observation of Clouds (Debesų stebėjimas, 2012); and the trickling of sand in the audiovisual composition Sandglasses (Smėlio laikrodžiai, 2010). The composer states that ideas for her musical compositions are formed from visual impressions, while the ideal piece is when ‘every sound explains itself and the following sound.’ This is why all her works are based on a principle of cyclical metamorphosis: day becoming night (one layer of texture is replaced by another) in Prolongation of Night; reversible process (inversion of the hourglass) in Sandglasses; metamorphosis of timbre and dynamics in Watercolour (Akvarelė, 2007) and Textile (Tekstilė, 2008); and the transformation of three layers of texture representing the change of state of water (vapour-liquid-ice) in Observation of Clouds (2012). Janulytė writes monochromatic music, which means she chooses ensembles of the same instruments, even in Textile, commissioned by the Venice Biennale, and in Midnight Sun, for symphony orchestra, commissioned by the Vilnius Festival; the composer seeks to retain an illusion of continuous sound matter. Her pantheistic ideas are rational, but the music embodying them is particularly emotional. Janulytė’s compositions have been performed at festivals such as Birmingham Artsfest, the Venice Biennale, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the ISCM World Music Days, Sounds New in Canterbury, Musica in Strasbourg, Rome’s RomaEuropa, Berlin’s MaerzMusik, the Holland Festival, the Warsaw Autumn Festival, Glasgow’s Sonica, the Sydney Festival, Vale of Glamorgan, and others.
Justė Janulytė’s music is available at: www.mic.lt/en/database/classical/composers/janulyte/