LENsemble: Rusne Mataityte, violin, Robertas Bliskevicius, viola, Edmundas Kulikauskas, cello, Albina Siksniute, piano Marija Grikeviciute, piano PHILIP CASHIAN First and foremost, Cashian’s work is musicianly, written without need of grand accompanying statements for musicians, at whatever level, to play. It is also, as players and listeners will discover, the emanation of a vivid imagination, possessed of a narrative strength that can sweep the listener along on journeys to unanticipated destinations. (Matthew Greenall) A composer of abundant imagination and elegance. (Paul Conway) His music courses with energy, driven along on high-octane rhythmic invention: it’s constantly diverting, constantly surprising. (Andrew Clements) An English composer Philip Cashian is the head of composition of the Royal Academy of Music and visiting professor at the Birmingham Conservatoire and Goldsmiths College. Cashian studied at Cardiff University, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Durham University. His teachers have included Simon Bainbridge, Lukas Foss and Oliver Knussen. Cashian’s music has been performed and broadcast worldwide. For their 1998 Shell UK tour, the London Symphony Orchestra commissioned Night Journeys, a double concerto for timpani and percussion. In 2006 Sarah Nicolls gave the first performance of his Piano Concerto with the London Sinfonietta under Zsolt Nagy. 2008 saw the premiere of his first opera, The Cumnor Affair for Tete a Tete Opera Company at the Riverside Studios, London. Works for smaller forces were performed by carious chamber ensembles and soloists; he has also worked with the choreographer Ian Spink. Cashian has a close relationship with the Composers Ensemble for whom he has written, to date, half a dozen pieces. Recent works include Dark Flight (2009) for six cellos, All things wear silence (2010) for choir, brass and organ, Aquila (2010) for clarinet, cello and piano, Samain (2011) for string quartet and Settala's Machine (2012) for wind ensemble. In March 2013 Cashian was composer in residence at Oberlin Conservatoire where his Concerto for cello and strings received it’s premiere. Cashian was awarded the Britten Prize in 1991, the Mendelssohn Scholarship in 1992 and the PRS Composition Prize in 1994. As Roger Thomas states, Cashian’s fast-paced style is an uncompromising reflection of the modern world, yet at the same time his sense of detail – both explicit and implied – and figuration are never overcome. The hallmarks in Cashian’s music are the bold melodic gestures for instruments in unison; a kind of broken machine texture in which uneven rhythms lumber almost out of control; motor rhythm sections pointing up a relationship with minimal- ism; and contemplative passages, akin to Morton Feldman, in which musical objects are carefully placed in static fields. Above all there is a brisk intelligence behind the music, unsentimental certainly, but never arid (after Bernard Hughes). Philip Cashian piano cycle Six Pieces after Paintings by Ben Hartley (2006) was inspired by some Hartley’s works. Cashian first came to know from Bernard Samuels’ first book on Ben Hartley. He spent childhood holidays in Ermington, the Devon village where Ben Hartley lived for over twenty years. The colorful images are evoked in six miniatures more descriptive than abstract starting from the fanfare style in the first piece to the computer game-like relentlessness of the final piece. One more music composition inspired by art works was Caprichos (2003) that takes its name from Goya’s Los Caprichos, a set of eighty aquatints which depict the bizarre and often grotesque world and the folly of Spanish society in the 18th century. The music’s sharply etched lines are a dark and troubled commentary on the present, with only the serene, high violin line offering any hope. Piano quartet Music for the Night Sky (1999) was comissioned by Schubert Ensemble and written for the Chamber Music 2000 project. The piano part is vivid for its bobbling over a sea of thrills and arpeggios. JOHN WOOLRICH Woolrich’s score develops and extends his incisive, atmospheric, and innately dramatic musical voice into striking new territory. (Malcolm Hayes) Intricate and yet transparent; original and bizarre. The dominant motif of the 'raucous' sections is just a sequence of stabbing repeated notes, always preceded and followed by a whirling chromatic flourish. (David Murray) ... the textures are crisp and vivid, and he has solved the problem of balancing the relatively slender sound of an oboe against a full orchestra in an ingenious and convincing way. (Andrew Clements) Before studying composition, John Woolrich studied English at university. Today he is a frequently performed composer, a highly creative teacher and an original programmer. Woolrich founded a group (the Composers Ensemble), a festival (Hoxton New Music Days, now Almeida Opera Concerts) and has been composer in association with both the Orchestra of St Johns’ and the Britten Sinfonia. His successful collaborations with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group led to his appointment in 2002 as Artist-in-Association. He was guest Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival in 2004 and Associate Artistic Director of the festival from 2005 to 2010. From 2010 to 2013 Woolrich was both Artistic Director of Dartington International Summer School and Professor of Music at Brunel University. Woolrich’s music is performed worldwide by prestigious symphony orchestras and conductors. Throughout the 1990s, Woolrich had a string of orchestral commissions, which resulted in some of his most significant works: his concertos for viola, oboe and cello. Other orchestral pieces written during this period include The Ghost in the Machine and Si Va Facendo Notte which the Barbican Centre commissioned to celebrate the Mozart European Journey Project. Recent pieces include a violin concerto, for Carolin Widmann and the Northern Sinfonia, and Falling Down, a double bassoon concerto for Margaret Cookhorn and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (both composed in 2008), Capriccio for violin and strings, commissioned by the Scottish Ensemble for the 2009 Proms, and Between the Hammer and the Anvil (2009), for the London Sinfonietta,. What kind of music does Woolrich write? Is he a post-modernist, playing games with his allusions and re-creations? Some compositions by Woolrich are re-creations of earlier music as well. Neo-classical Ulysses Awakes (1989), for instance, is a re-composition of a Monteverdi aria, and The Theatre Represents a Garden: Night (1991) is based on fragments of Mozart. A fascination with machinery and mechanical processes is heard in many pieces including The Ghost in the Machine (1990) and The Barber’s Timepiece (1986) for large orchestra. There’s a wonderful moment in the Viola Concerto (1993) where the music makes reference, as Woolrich notes, to the ghost of Schumann's allusion to Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte from Schumann's Fantasy Op. 17. Another anniversary tribute – Arcangelo (2003), to commemorate Arcangelo Corelli. According to Dermot Clinch, Woolrich’s musical personality is shy, but intensely cultured. The questions raised by many his that pieces – how to be convincingly personal in public, how to find and project a voice – are at the heart of Woolrich’s music, and they are ones to which Woolrich finds answers as cogent as any composer working today. The piano quartet Adagissimo was composed in 1997 and first perfomerd by Composers Ensemble in Birmingham. Jį atliko Woolricho įkurtas Kompozitorių ansamblis. After Nicholas Williams, the work is related to weighty thoughts of approaching death or of lost love. In this context may be mentioned other Woolrich’s chamber compositions: Berceuse (1990) for soprano and cmaber ensemble and trio A Farewell (1992). LENsemble (LITHUANIAN ENSEMBLE NETWORK) is a professional Contemporary Music organization connecting professional ensembles, soloists and conductors. Vykintas Baltakas directs LENsemble as an open platform where creative ideas can be professionally realized as a united ensemble – LENsemble. LENsemble consists of: the Chordos String Quartet, Kristupas Wind Quintet, Kaskados Piano Trio, Vilnius Brass Quintet, accordionist Raimondas Sviackecičius, pianist Rima Chačaturian, composer and singer Rita Mačiliūnaitė and others. LENsemble 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. LENsemble is a positive presence in the international contemporary music scene. LENsemble is proud about its performances at the WDR (2009), at the Ruhr European Capital of Culture (2010), Ultraschall Festival Berlin (2013), its recordings for Deutschland Radio Kultur, WDR, Kairos, Megadisc Classics, Lithuanian Radio and Television. www.lithuanian-ensemble.net www.baltakas.net