Between Stravinsky and Nono, setting up a short circuit between “roots and future”, are two new names: that of the 25-year-old Lithuanian, Juste Janulyte, and that of the 31-year-old Estonian, Mirjam Tally, respectively with the new creation commissioned by the Biennale and and an Italian premiere.

Juste Janulyte (1982) first came to the attention of critics after winning the prize for the best score of chamber music at the Lithuanian union of composers with white music for 15 violins, written as her diploma thesis in 2004, following studies at the Lithuanian Academy of music and theatre and at the Milan Conservatoire. Since then, her music has been performed in several countries in Europe, in Canada and in the United States. For the most part written for “monochromatic” ensembles, Janulyte’s works have often been defined “acoustic metaphors for visual ideas” (Let’s talk about shadows 2004, Textile 2006, Silence of the falling snow 2006, Aquarelle 2007); other compositions, in which sound and images are indissolubly fused, seek the visual nature of musical phenomena (Breathing music for string quartet, electronics and aerial sculptures, Eclipses for violin, viola, cello, double bass, live electronics and a glass installation impenetrable to sound, both of 2007).

“One of the reasons that I enjoy composing so much”, declares Juste Janulyte, “is that it enables me to embody utopian ideas, which break free of all rules of logic or, even better, physical laws”.

The fusion of acoustic and electronic sounds, to which are added the use of unusual instruments (kannel, didgeridoo, tanbur, accordion) instead characterise the music of Mirjam Tally (1976), who gained her diploma at the Estonian Academy of Music in 2000, studying with Lepo Sumera and Rauno Remme (Electronics), gaining her master’s in 2003 and in the same year recording her first CD (ARM Music). Winner of the Heinno Eller (2004), in 2005 Myriam Tally was at the International Centre for composers at Visby on the island of Gotland, Sweden, to which she moved.

Here is how the Estonian composer describes the inspiration behind Turbulence  (2006): “Contrary winds, gusts, a breeze. The sound of a ferry coming alongside or of an aeroplane passing through a storm. This and other ideas used in this work emerged during a voyage in a ferry to the island of Hiiumaa, hearing the various noises from the engine and rattles of the ship caused the sudden materialisation of this strong powerful noise in pure music.

Other ideas were subsequently added in the wake of some journeys by aeroplane, together with the role played by a factory in Visby which, because of the constant complaints of neighbours, has been closed down, but which used to inspire me with the sounds its machines would make.

A symphonic orchestra, using electronic instruments to alter the live sounds, emphasises even more the bond with the theme ‘between contemporary music as zone of passage and territory between’, increasing the classic sonorous landscapes with modern technologies. Here, natural and mechanical sounds come together and blend to form a single musical weave. The result is a sonorous jungle illustrating the mechanism of a machine and highlighting the beauty of creaks and rumbles from within; sounds that we commonly hear in the places in which we live and which we often deem to be ugly, but which are in reality veritable gems”.

The concert will be conducted by the principal conductor of the Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, Eliahu Inbal, who held the same post between 1984 and 1987 and who has recorded Stravinsky’s operas with the London Philharmonia Orchestra.