Justė Janulytė

Works / 2015

Radiance

for 12 voices and live electronics

Production

commissioned by the GAIDA festival (Vilnius). 1st performance: 28th of October, Vilnius St. Catherine Church, GAIDA festival, perf. Jauna Muzika choir, cond. Vaclovas Augustinas

Concept/composition: Justė JANULYTĖ Electronics - creation/performance: Michele TADINI/Antonello RAGGI

Concept

If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One and I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds (from Bhagavad Gītā), – so was talking Julius Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director at Manhattan Project, after the first artificial nuclear explosion 'Trinity test' near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on 16th July 1945.

"Radiance" is a metaphoric reflection of the anatomic/philosophy, energetics/poetics of the nuclear explosion; intending to be a requiem for the victims of the first atomic bombing. The genetic code of the piece is a duality and ambiguity symbolized by the Bhagavad Gītā phrase and refers to the initial, purely scientific enthusiasm of the Manhattan Project in inventing the atomic bomb; and its apocalyptic consequences after dropping it on inhabited areas. The structure of the composition is an overlap of two antiphonic processes of radiation: two groups of high and low choir voices that initially "live" in a unison start radiating, splitting (fission), because of the strong attraction between opposites poles, their territories get closer, until, they completely merge (fusion). Therefore the explosion becomes inevitable. Justė Janulytė

Creation and production of the electronic part of Radiance involves several real-time processes of augmentation, de-humanization, and transfiguration of the sonic material, in line with the poetic frame set by Janulytė’s idea. The progressive accumulation, distortion, and polarization of different vocal registers takes the listener into a different flow of time where the natural logic of action-consequence is being destroyed, and therefore the catastrophe is always happening, or has not happened yet. In the end, in the little details that only a macroscopic stretch of time and sound can reveal, we can find seeds of beauty from which we can go on after the tragedy. Antonello Raggi

Duration
30'

Recording

https://soundcloud.com/juste-janulyte/radiance-for-choir-and-live-electronics-2015

Performances

  • perf. by Sequenza 9.3 vocal ensemble, cond. Catherine Simonpietri (Paris). Biennale di Venezia (IT)

  • Music of Changes festival, Klaipeda (LT)

  • for 12 voices and live electronics (WP). In collaboration with Michele Tadini/Antonello Raggi. St.Catherine Church, GAIDA festival (Vilnius, LT)

Press