Four cellists sit on the stage. In one hour, they will go through their entire register, but at different tempos, thus creating a polytemporal canon. Furthermore, each cello is recorded and then layered by electronic means, thus making every instrument the source of its own canon. The sound of four cellos is transformed into an orchestra of 400. And each player is shrouded in invisible tulle, on which light projections appear. Sometimes they swirl in small flakes like snow, and sometimes they turn to stone.

This is the experience of Sandglasses, created by Justė Janulytė, a young Lithuanian composer, along with her international team of video and electronic music artists, most notably the Italian Luca Scarzella, and performed by soloists of the Gaida ensemble.

As the title suggests, the inspiration for the project was hourglasses, which can be of different durations and different capacities, like the tempos of the cellos, but which also have multiple symbolic and poetic associations that the composer sets out to explore in her music.

Flagey, Lithuanian Presidency