About

Justė Janulytė - D. Matvejev D. Matvejev

The works of Justė Janulytė claim to build a "monochrome music" collection: they explore time-space perception through large-scale multilayered textures and extremely gradual metamorphoses. Justė Janulytė's catalogue, balancing between the aesthetics of minimalism, spectralism and acoustic electronica, has become one of the most fascinating focal points in the contemporary musical world. (Universal Music Publishing Classical)

"Justė Janulytė's music is where one experiences only consistency, space, weight, power and intensity rather than specific parts and details. This makes you nervous, because you cannot switch the other mode or turn away or else you will miss out completely without ever experiencing this in full. In other words, Justė Janulytė's music is sublime, almost in classical Kantian description. In the philosopher's point of view, sublime is something limitless, never ending and related to serious acts of imagination. This is precisely what Justė Janulytė's music does. It activates human imagination and, ostensibly, this is the reason it enjoys such a great success internationally." (Asta Pakarklytė)

Juste Janulyte's music moves over the listener like a wave, bathing you in warm sonorities and rich harmonies. Taking a lot of her inspiration from visual aspects of the natural world such as shifting clouds and falling snow, Janulyte's monochromatic compositions seem to play with temperature and density of sound. (London Sinfonietta)

Her works are published by Éditions Salabert/Universal Music Publishing ClassicalSome recordings are on Souncloud

 

The works by Justė Janulytė (born in Vilnius), mostly written for dense monochromatic ensembles (only strings, only winds or only voices), explore musical time/space perception through large-scale multilayered textures and extremely gradual metamorphoses. While balancing between the aesthetics of minimalism, spectralism and acoustic electronica, Justė Janulytė composes sonic metaphors of optic ideas (Here at the quiet limit for male choir and string orchestra, The Colour of Water for saxophone(s) solo and orchestra, Was there a Swan? for symphony orchestra) and researches the visual nature of musical phenomena in the works where sound and image are fused together (Breathing Music for string quartet, electronics and kinetic sculptures, Sandglasses for 4 cellos, electronics and video scenography).

In 2009 Janulyte won the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris (in the category of composers under 30). In 2011 the composer was awarded the Young Artist's Prize by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and in 2017 the Lithuanian National Arts and Culture Prize, the highest artistic distinction in Lithuania. In 2019 she won the ‘Musica femina München’ competition. 

She has collaborated with quite a few of the world’s leading ensembles and soloists including Konzerthausorchester Berlin, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Teatro La Fenice Symphony, BBC Symphony and National Orchestra of Wales, Helsinki Philharmonic, Polish National Philharmonic, Estonian National Symphony, Brno Philharmonic, Münchener Kammerorchester, Riga Sinfonietta, Ensemble Modern, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, London sinfonietta, Remix Ensemble Casa da Música, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber and Male Choirs, SWR Vokalensemble, WDR Rundfunkchor, Latvian Radio choir, BBC Singers, Quasar, Xasax and Flotilla saxophone quartets, saxophonist Marcus Weiss, cellist Sèverine Ballon, trumpeter Marco Blaauw, flutist Manuel Zurria, harpsichordist Goska Isphording, conductors Olari Elts, Eliahu Inbal, Enno Poppe, Peter Rundel, Normunds Šnė, Jörg Widmann amongst others. Her music has been performed across Europe, the Americas, Australia and Japan, and has featured in such contexts as Sydney Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Venice Biennale, RomaEuropa, Milano Musica, ManiFeste (Paris), Holland Festival (Amsterdam), Musica Nova Helsinki, Warsaw Autumn, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, SonicA (Glasgow), Maerzmusik (Berlin), Musik der Zeit (WDR Cologne), Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik, musikprotokoll Graz, Biennale Némo (Gaîté lyrique, Paris), Musica festival (Strasbourg), Musicadhoy (Madrid), Moravian Autumn (Brno) to name a few.

       In 2020 Justė Janulytė made her cinematic debut collaborating with Latvian director Viesturs Kairišs on the full length feature "City on the River" continuing with "January" which won the Tribeca (NY) film festival as the best international narrative feature as well as Roma Film Fest among others.

She is also engaged in teaching composition at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and numerous masterclasses, including Madona/Latvia (2018), SYNTHETIS in Radziejowice/Poland together with Chaya Czernowin, Toshio Hosokawa, Zygmunt Krauze (2019), with Mark Andre, Ivan Fedele, Zygmunt Krauze (2020), International Young Composers Academy in Lugano/Switzerland with Oscar Bianchi and Mauro Lanza (2021). 

Justė Janulytė is a member of the Musical Council of the Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco.

         

symphony orchestra

Was there a Swan? for organ and symphony orchestra, 20' (2019)

The Colour of Water” for solo saxophone(s) and chamber orchestra, 17' (2017)

Textile” for symphony orchestra, 9’ (2006)

choir and orchestra

"Recordare" for choir and orchestra (2021)

Here at the quiet limit” for male choir and string orchestra, 20' (2018)

Observation of Clouds” for choir, double wind quintet and strings, 35’ (2012)

string orchestra

Apnea” for string orchestra, 15’ (2021)

Windharfe” for harpsichord and string orchestra, 15' (2018)

Circle for a Square” for (amplified) 4 string quartets, 25' (2018)

Pendulums” for solo string quartet and string orchestra (2011)

Elongation of Nights” for 21 strings, 8’30'' (2009)

White music” for 15 strings, 11’ (2004)

ensemble

"Sleeping patterns" for ensemble, 20' (2022)

chamber

“Unanimus” for 8 strings, 7’ (2020)

Unanime” for 8 trumpets, 15’ (2020)

Harp is a Chord” for harpsichord and accordion, 12’ (2016)

Warum betrübst du dich, mein Herz” for organ, 6’ (2012)

Psalms” for cello and pre-recorded cellos, 11’ (2008) also versions for bass flute/soprano saxophone/violin/electric guitar etc.

Aria” for string quartet, 9’30'' (2008)

“Aria” for cello and accordion, 11’ (2008)

Silence of the falling snow” for two pianos, 10’30'' (2006)

Endings” for saxophone quartet, 10’30'' (2005)

Let’s talk about Shadows” for clarinet in B, violin and piano, 5’30” (2004)

choir

Now I’m nowhere” for male choir, 12’30’’ (2019)

Radiance” for chamber choir and electronics, 30’ (2015)

Plonge” for cello and 12 voices, 10’ (2015)

“Ihr schatten schneller Zeit” for 16 voices, 7’ (2014)

Aquarelle” for chamber orchestra, 9’ (2007)

installation

Skycity”, “Waves”, 60’ (2019)

Sandglasses” for 4 cellos, electronics and video, 50’ (2010) (stage performance)

Breathing music” for string quartet, electronics and kinetic sculptures, 25’ (2007)

 

Janulyte has been hailed one of Europe’s most prodigious young composers. Her award-winning music typically features only one type of instrument, producing long, slow, gradual transformations in texture and register. This unique approach sucks time into itself, making it feel both flitting and eternal. Hellen Wright   

In the music of Justė Janulytė the sound unfolds as an autonomous event, with incredible lightness, as a confluence of energies, which transform it into increasingly dilated harmonies. No beat, no apparent rhythm, just the ‘deaf’ pulsation perhaps, a downtempo, as some kinds of the electronic music are qualified; the swelling of intensities, the saturation of space, and then eventual return to the state of calm, which is already different, marked and disturbed. The importance of material that found reflection in the titles of her works: Textile (for orchestra, 2006), Aquarelle (for choir, 2007), Silence of the Falling Snow (for two pianos, 2006), Endings (for 4 saxophones, 2005)... But the most important is metamorphosis, a very personal one and therefore instantly recognisable. This is not the telluric forces in Xenakis, or the atomic process in Ligeti, but rather an irradiant form. Elongation of Nights, the second score for string orchestra after the White Music, with which the composer made her public debut in 2004, gives a good example of such radiation. Some kind of timeless, floating metamorphosis. A strikingly innovative dramaturgy of sound. Antoine Gind  

The composer's way of thinking is easily recognizable when listening to "Sandglasses": long, slow expositions; gradual enrichment of texture; thanks to her relished canon technique large sound layers create impression of twinkling. All of it inspires images of lights, colors glimmering and rippling. It seems the music emerges from unseen distances, and gets closer to the listener without notice, then finally pierces into the listener, passes through all the cells, moves the atoms, and then slowly recedes until disappearing completely in the horizon. Sometimes it seems that Juste’s works do not have a beginning or an end and that over there, behind the horizon, the music keeps on moving, pierces someone else. I associate Juste's music not with sound images but with the substance which is moving in space and has its temperature, light and density. Such substance-like quality of music is effective to the listener: even when hearing the piece for the first time you can identify in which partition of the piece you are, where to is the mass of sound moving. This quasi-physical contact is in my opinion an essential feature of the reception of Juste’s music. Jūratė Katinaitė

 

 

 

Janulyte has been hailed one of Europe’s most prodigious young composers. Her award-winning music typically features only one type of instrument, producing long, slow, gradual transformations in texture and register. This unique approach sucks time into itself, making it feel both flitting and eternal. Hellen Wright | The Skinny
Janulyte has been hailed one of Europe’s most prodigious young composers. Her award-winning music typically features only one type of instrument, producing long, slow, gradual transformations in texture and register. This unique approach sucks time into itself, making it feel both flitting and eternal. Hellen Wright | The Skinny