LENsemble (Lithuanian Ensemble Network): Rusnė Mataitytė | solo violin Edmundas Kulikauskas | solo cello Giedrius Gelgotas, Fute Andrius Žiūra | clarinet Paulius Lukauskas | horn Albina Šikšniūtė | piano Raimondas Sviackevičius | accordion Ieva Sipaitytė | violin Vaida Paukštienė | violin Vita Šiugždinienė| cello Lukrecija Petkutė-Dailydienė, fortepijonas Vykintas Baltakas, cond. ----- Vykintas Baltakas (*1972) LEN founder and artistic leader, composer and conductor VYKINTAS BALTAKAS studied composition with Vytautas Barkauskas at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater, before studying composition with Wolfgang Rihm and conducting with Andreas Weiss in Karlsruhe from 1993 to 1997. He subsequently studied in Paris at the Conservatoire National Supérieur and took a one year course at IRCAM. Conductors and composers make up two sides of the coin for the busiest of musicians – an attitude shared by Peter Eötvös who was his teacher between 1994 and 1997. In the meantime he is a regular guest at festivals and with ensembles throughout Europe. Institutions that have commissioned works by Baltakas include the WDR Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Biennale, the Wiener Festwochen/Klangforum Wien,the Ensemble Modern and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/musica viva. Vykintas Baltakas has in recent years conducted renowned orchestras such as the RSO and DSO Berlin, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the WDR Symphony Orchestra as well as ensembles including Ensemble Resonanz, the Ensemble Modern and Scharoun Ensemble. He has also collaborated with composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Georg Friedrich Haas and Dieter Schnebel. In 2009 he founded the Lithuanian Ensemble Network (LEN) of which he is the main driving force. Baltakas’ works have been awarded with prizes such as the International Claudio Abbado Composition Prize (2003) and the Siemens Advancement Award (2007). CD recordings of his compositions have been recently made by the Ensemble musikFabrik Cologne and the Ensemble Modern. www.baltakas.net Recitativo for violin and piano (2014) Recitativo for violin and piano was composed in 2014 under the commission by the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium for the semi-final of the 2015 violin competition. After the composer, “it is sound what I am most concerned with, when I am composing. To me sound can be like a living being – sometimes with its own wishes and caprices. I try to understand it, change it, sometimes I have to accept its intrincic behavior and change my own perspective. The Recitativo-sound is light, flighty, impulsive, shy. It is difficult to catch. It feels like it wants to tell you something but it hesitates. The impulses from piano can encourage it. The stronger these impulses are – the more can be said. Imagine a feather floating on a breeze. All you want to do is to keep this feather floating…” Commentum for violoncello and piano (2011) “Comment, interpretation, invention, fabrication, fiction”, in classical Latin; neut. pp. of comminisci “to contrive, devise”, from com-, intensive prefix + base of meminisse (to remember).  According to Baltakas, Commentum is a free rendition of Chopin’s Introduction after listening to it again. Without any alterations, predilections and attempts at ‘modernization’, but rather like a spontaneous expression of one’s personal opinion. A piece for violoncello and piano was written in 2011 for David Geringas and Ian Fountain as a commission from the Vilnius Festivals. The premiere was held on 2 June, 2011 at the Lithuanian Philharmonic Hall. *** JUSTINA REPEČKAITĖ (b. 1989) is a composer and vocal improviser based in Paris. She studied at LAMT and Paris Conservatoire, where she also attended contemporary and medieval music improvisation classes as a singer. Her great interest in medieval culture leads her musical pursuits to geometrical and mathematical concepts. Justina’s piece Chartres for string orchestra was a recommended work at the International Rostrum of Composers in 2013, won the Best Debut Prize of the year in Lithuania and was released in ZOOM in 10 and 30 Moments of Druskomanija by LCU. Chartres represented ISCM Lithuanian section at World Music Days 2015 in Ljubljana and performed the same week in the Music of Changes Festival in Klaipėda. Repečkaitė’s music is performed by such French ensembles as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ensemble Court-Circuit, Ensemble 2e2m and Collectif Warn!ng, as well as at the Moscow Philharmonic by the Moscow Contemporary Music Ensemble. Last year Justina was commissioned by the Gaida Festival, where Spectra Ensemble from Belgium premiered her composition Acupuncture. At the moment Justina is writing music for an interdisciplinary project hearing art, seeing sound in Armenia. “The music of Justina Repečkaitė has many similarities to a diamond. With its hard unforgiving shape and geometric perfection, it creates a profound and striking beauty, which singles her out from many composers of her generation.” (Ben Lunn) Tapisserie (Tapestry, 2014). Tapestry – a polychromic fabric – was an inspiration for the title of this piece of music, which has a decorative and repetitive character. According to the image of weaver’s art, the compositional principle consists of binding different attacks of sound in order to create a timbre, dynamics and rhythm polychromy in time. The percussive attacks of the piano are orchestrated by the emergence and then disappearance of other instruments. Gradually an accumulation and superposition of pulsations produce a complex rhythm and the role of each instrument is enriched. The absence of any harmonic movement results in a stable harmony that helps one to hear neutral intervals (neither minor, nor major) made possible by the use of micro-tons. The composition was premiered by the Ensemble Court-Circuit (Paris). Rapid Eye Movements (2014). The title is an allusion to the stage of sleep called Rapid Eye Movement sleep (REM). It is characterized by muscle paralysis and quick movements of the eyes. This kind of atmosphere is created in the composition by the predomination of a static harmony and lack of any apparent evolution in rhythmical vibration. This unsettling dream constantly shatters into fragments. The previously mentioned static harmony consists of four intervals and pitches evolving from them, which are obtained by adding frequencies of those four intervals. The aim is to stress the created amplitude of the vibrato. The periodicity of pulsations sounding between pairs of instruments expressed in di erent tempoes, correspond to the proportions between frequencies of intervals. The composition was premiered by the Ensemble 2e2m (Paris). *** VYTAUTAS GERMANAVIČIUS (*1969) “Music is a space of hidden thoughts, senses, philosophy, and symbols that has to be revealed, opened up to the listener, and constantly re-discovered by listening”, asserts Vytautas Germanavičius. Perhaps for this reason the composer seeks new sounds and new techniques for producing them, affirming that each piece ought to have its own unique sound-space and sound-material. Germanavičius in his early years studied accordion, classical and jazz piano. In 1996 he graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music with MA in composition under Professor Julius Juzeliūnas. In 2005 he received an MFA in electronic music from Mills College, USA. He was a recipient of the UNESCO-Aschberg Bursary for residence at the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), FULBRIGHT-Scholarship (USA), Sir William Glock Scholarship (UK), he received numerous grants from the Open Society Fund Lithuania to participate in multicultural projects in Ukraine, Moldova, Mongolia, and China. Germanavičius’ music has been performed by prominent orchestras and ensembles, and in many international contemporary music festivals throughout Europe, North America and Asia. He has released three CD’s of his music – “Compositions for Lithuanian traditional instruments”, “Unknown Spaces”, and “Melting Constellations”. Germanavičius currently holds the position of the Chairman of the Lithuanian Composers Union Music Foundation and Chairman of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) Lithuanian Section. Cadenza  Cadenza for violin and accordion was composed in 2002. as the composer states, it is “a swarm of sounds, moving together in sequence with a single, sustained sound which gradually fluctuates assuming expressions through various timbres. Hence, it is a piece with many ‘cadences’.” *** The LITHUANIAN ENSEMBLE NETWORK (LENsemble) is a professional Contemporary Music organization connecting professional ensembles, soloists and conductors. Vykintas Baltakas directs LEN as an open platform where creative ideas can be professionally realized and as a united ensemble – L’ENsemble. L’ENsemble consists of: the Chordos String Quartet, Kristupas Wind Quintet, Kaskados Piano Trio, Vilnius Brass Quintet, accordionist Raimondas Sviackevičius, pianist Rima Chačaturian, composer and singer Rita Mačiliūnaitė and others. LEN is working with established institutions of contemporary music in Lithuania and abroad, such as the Lithuanian Composers’ Union, Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre, Lithuanian Academy of Music and theatre, Goethe-Institut Vilnius and Karsten Witt Musikmanagement Berlin. LEN is a positive presence in the international contemporary music scene. LEN is proud about its performances at the WDR (2009), at the Ruhr European Capital of Culture (2010), Ultraschall Festival Berlin (2013), its recordings for Kairos, Megadisc Classics, WDR, Deutschland Radio Kultur, WDR, Lithuanian Radio and Television. In 2011 LEN started the concert series Composers of our time, featuring the influential international and lithuanian composers. We already presented: Gerhard Stäbler (2011), Bronius Kutavičius (2012), Luciano Berio (2013), Wolfgang Rihm, Matthias Pintscher and John Woolrich (2014). The Portraits of György Ligeti, Helmut Lachenmann and Beat Furrer are in preparation. The Composers of our time are supported by the Lithuanian cultural support foundation, Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung, Goethe Institut Vilnius and the Lithuanian Composers’ Union. www.lithuanian-ensemble.net