Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre proudly presents a new release from the series “Contemporary Composer” – Nude by Šarūnas Nakas featuring the composer’s most interesting works from the last decade – Chronon for chamber ensemble (1997), Nude for symphony orchestra (2004), Aporia for large ensemble (2001), and Crown for wind orchestra (2005), revealing an impressive panorama of the composer’s work.
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Šarūnas Nakas undoubtedly is one of the most interesting figures of Lithuanian new music, who is active in many roles as a composer, essayist, conductor, video artist, organiser of contemporary music festivals and author of radio programs. Whatever the field of the composer’s activity is, whatever role he might play (though all of them are strongly related), Šarūnas Nakas is always noted for his critical and intriguing manner, which necessarily makes the audience yield to the suggestion of his activity, be it a text, musical composition or a radio or festival program. Šarūnas Nakas is in permanent polemics with his listeners or readers, masterfully manipulating different viewpoints or cross-sections, though at the same time retaining an incorruptible attitude with regard to various phenomena of life.
However, it is composition that Šarūnas Nakas seems to regard as the most important and primary activity, thus his ambitions in this field are considerably greater. His new works turn out to be unordinary, even exclusive musical events that have no analogues in Lithuanian music. Among them released on the new CD is Chronon – masterfully constructed musical abstractions of different movements, which make it one of the most complex works in Lithuanian music in general; Nude – a ritual of pure sound allowing us to travel in space and time; Aporia, symbolizing three different methods of composition – natural, artificial and traditional, which sound simultaneously; and Crown, impressing the listener with its powerful soundscrapers, monumental boulders of frozen sound. All these four compositions recorded on the CD may arouse most varied associations, fascinate or irritate us, but it is not the kind of music that passes by unnoticed.
The CD was recorded by the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra led by Julius Geniušas, Gaida Ensemble conducted by Jussi Jaatinen, and Windkraft Tirol from Austria, led by Kasper de Roo.
LMIPC inf.
