Sandglasses

Concert Sandglasses by Justė Janulytė, programmed in Holland Festival 2011.
Lithuanian composer Justė Janulytė concerns herself with both sound and vision, composing ‘acoustic metaphors of optical ideas’. In collaboration with video artist Luca Scarzella, set designer Jūratė Paulėkaitė and light designer Eugenijus Sabaliauskas she created a living musical installation for celli, electronics and video. On a sparsely lit stage, four cello players appear, each of them trapped in a transparent column. Starting from an electronically equalized tone, high and eerie, the cellists slowly descend through the registers, whilst in the columns traces of light flit down, like grains of sand in a time glass. As the grains change into denser textures, and the music fills out, the audience slowly lose their sense of time.