Contemporary Music Ensemble Synaesthesis:
Marta Finkelštein piano
Vytenis Gurstis flute
Artūras Kažimėkas clarinet
Diemantė Merkevičiūtė violin
Monika Kiknadzė viola
Arnas Kmieliauskas cello
Donatas Butkevičius double bass
Andrius Rekašius vibraphone
Karolis Variakojis conductor
Žibuoklė Martinaitytė Solastalgia
Dominykas Digimas / Julius Aglinskas / Ramūnas Motiekaitis Flaneur
Minimalist music, or music that is economical in means, static, full of repetitions and clear in structure, became the domain of Lithuanian composers in the 1970s. Half a century later, the reduction of musical material is still a strategy eagerly chosen by artists across Poland’s north-eastern border. Among the representatives of Lithuanian minimalism are Dominykas Digimas, Julius Aglinskas and Ramunas Motiekaitis. The melancholic and subtle character of their work can be heard thanks to Contemporary Music Ensemble Synaesthesis. The Vilnius-based ensemble commissioned a piece from three composers inspired by the walks around the city deserted by the lockdown. This is how Flaneur (from French: flâneur – walker, vagabond) was created – an acoustic project that is a record of states, feelings and emotions accompanying the pandemic. Similar reactions are evoked by Solastalgia by Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, a Lithuanian composer whose music is characterized by an extraordinary richness of timbres and a complexity of textures. The titular “solastalgia” is a set of ailments, such as sadness or anxiety, caused by climate change and a feeling of helplessness in the face of these changes.
Wioleta Żochowska
