About

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

Justė Janulytė (born 1982 in Vilnius) studied composition at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (with Bronius Kutavičius and Osvaldas Balakauskas), Milan “Giuseppe Verdi” Conservatoire (Alessandro Solbiati) and in various masterclasses (Luca Francesconi, Helena Tulve etc.).

Janulytė's music has been played in Europe, USA and Canada, by many Lithuanian performers as well as Teatro La Fenice Symphony, Gothenburg Opera Symphony and French Flute Orchestras, Riga Sinfonietta, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, Ensemble Bit20 (Bergen), Orchestrutopica (Lisbon), Estonian Philharmonic and Danish Radio chamber choirs, Quasar (Montreal) and Xasax (Paris) saxophone quartets, cellists Anton Lukoszevieze (UK), Francesco Dillon (IT) and others. Her works were included in the programmes of the Venice Biennale, Holland festival (Amsterdam), Warsaw Autumn, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Maerzmusik (Berlin), Musica festival (Strasbourg), RomaEuropa, Musikprotokoll im steirischem Herbst (Graz), World New Music Days, Gaida (Vilnius) among others.

Justė Janulytė first came into public view in 2004 when her graduation work White music for 15 strings was awarded as the best chamber piece at the competition organized by the Lithuanian Composers' Union. Furthermore, she has won the prize for the best orchestral work (Textile, 2008) and the prize for the best chamber work (Elongation of Nights, 2010) at the same competition. In 2009 Aquarelle for choirwon the 1st prize (in the category of composers under 30) at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris.

Majority of the works by the author, written for 'monochromatic' ensembles (e.g. 24 flutes, 21 string, 16 voices etc.), represent slow metamorphoses of textural, dynamic, timbral and ornamental gestures. While balancing between the aesthetics of minimalism, sonorism and spectral music, Justė Janulytė composes acoustic metaphors of optic ideas (Let’s talk about shadows, 2004; Silence of the Falling Snow, 2006; Labyrinths, 2010 etc.) 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, 2007; Eclipses for violin, viola, cello, double bass, live electronics and soundproof glass installation, 2007/Integra, Sandglasses for 4 cellos, electronics and installation of video, lights and tulle, 2010/Réseau Varèse).

Since 2006 Janulytė has been teaching a course on contemporary music language at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. The composer has also written critics and articles on music. Lives and works in Vilnius and Milan.