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Justė Janulytė is a Lithuanian composer known for her innovative and minimalist approach to contemporary music. Born in 1982, she studied composition at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater and continued her studies in Milan. Janulytė’s work is characterized by homogeneous instrumental groups, focusing on gradual transformations of sound, texture and harmony. Her music is frequently performed at international festivals and by renowned ensembles throughout Europe, which has earned her multiple awards and established her as one of the leading voices in contemporary classical music.
Janulytė’s works, mostly written for dense monochromatic ensembles (strings only, winds only or voices only), explore musical time/space perception through large-scale multilayered textures and extremely gradual metamorphoses. Balancing between the aesthetics of minimalism, spectralism and acoustic electronics, Justė Janulytė composes sonic metaphors of optical ideas.
In her work, sound develops as an autonomous event, with a remarkable lightness and flowing energies that gradually develop into stretched harmonies. There is no set beat or discernible rhythm, just a subtle, slow pulse reminiscent of some forms of electronic music. Intensities swell, fill the space, and then return to a calm that feels altered and disturbed.
About the composition
Iridescence for choir and electronics (2023) is a search for a musical metaphor for light, inspired by György Ligeti’s Lux aeterna. Ligeti described sound as a surface of changing colors in terms of harmony and timbre, an idea that fitted perfectly with the concept of iridescence, an optical natural phenomenon in which colors are constantly changing. In Iridescence, the choral voices move continuously in a circle, from the highest frequencies to the lowest notes and back again, creating an increasingly complex micro-polyphonic soundscape. The only sound is a pure wave, like slow breathing evolving organically. The text, taken from Richard Brautigan’s poem Star Hole, is repeated without consonants, adding a melancholic, slightly apocalyptic dimension to the lux aeterna theme.
La femme lumineuse
In La femme lumineuse, which features a diversity of works by contemporary female composers, Iridescence by Justė Janulytė plays a crucial role in the dynamics of light and dark, a theme that runs through several compositions.
Janulytė’s Iridescence, which focuses on the musical concept of light, thematically aligns with works such as Gundega Šmite’s Light seeking Light and Roxanna Panufnik’s Celestial Bird, which also use light as a symbol and musical metaphor. Whereas Šmite and Panufnik explore light as a searching or celestial force, Janulytė emphasizes the optical phenomenon of iridescent light, which constantly changes color and intensity. Her use of slowly evolving harmonies and undulating tonal movements adds an almost meditative, timeless quality that contrasts with the more rhythmic or textural intensity of other pieces in the program, such as Nana Forte’s En ego campana or Kaija Saariaho’s Nuits, adieux.
The works by Adrianna Kubica-Cypek(L’hiver) and Karin Rehnqvist(När natten skänker frid) each explore in their own way the stillness, cold, and calm of the night, and thus strongly complement the melancholic and apocalyptic feel of Janulytė’s composition, with the subtle dynamics of the choir and electronics in Iridescence offering a balance between abstraction and emotion.
Collectively, these pieces enhance the thematic exploration of light and dark, silence and sound, each offering a unique approach, while together creating a rich texture and dialogue between the composers.
