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    With this double album I introduce myself as a performer of contemporary classical music, which, I believe, might come as a surprise for listeners who are familiar only with my work in the fields of improvised music and avant-garde jazz. However, various genres of music as diverse as classical and jazz, free improvisation and contemporary classical were always there along the way, playing a significant role in shaping my approach to musical performance as an improviser and a musician in general – an approach that blurs distinctions not only between different genres but also between improvised and composed music, improvisation and interpretation.

    In addition to leading my own bands and working on my own projects, I consider myself very lucky to have had many fortunate opportunities to appear as a soloist and a section member with major symphony and chamber orchestras, both locally and further afield, as well as to collaborate with fantastic chamber ensembles and creative improv and jazz bands, which have notably included the Gaida Ensemble and the Lithuanian Ensemble Network, the Chordos and Čiurlionis string quartets, the Copenhagen Art Ensemble, the Barry Guy Ensemble, the Andrew Hill Jazzpar Octet, the Marc Ducret Ensemble for Lady M, the New Jungle Orchestra, the Konvoj Art Ensemble featuring Evan Parker and Sten Sandell, Vladimir Tarasov and the Lithuanian Art Orchestra, and the Improdimensija Orchestra. Some of these wonderful orchestras and musicians continue to keep me company in live concerts and on these two discs.

    Over the years I’ve also had a chance to work with many talented composers who have written fascinating music specifically for me or who would ingeniously adapt to my abilities and inclinations as an improviser by giving me the freedom of self-expression in their otherwise strictly written compositions. Out of several dozen such works I have selected ten compositions by eight (mostly Lithuanian) composers and wrapped it all up under a title adopted from one of my all-time favourite Lithuanian concert pieces for solo saxophone, Polylogue by Osvaldas Balakauskas. All of the pieces were recorded – some live, some in the studio – over a period of fifteen years, from 2005 to 2020, which retraces a substantial chapter in my professional career as an improvising multi-reed player and composer.

    CD 1 opens with the title track and features contemporary Lithuanian music for solo saxophone and orchestra. CD 2 sets off with the track Social, which marks the beginning of my ‘socializing’ with the Chordos Quartet. All works for solo saxophone and string quartet committed to this disc have been recorded with the same constellation of musicians (except for the closing piece where percussionist Arkady Gotesman and accordionist Raimondas Sviackevičius joined us), which may be called a band as we’ve been playing music by different composers and experimenting with my own music involving a lot of improvisation based on graphic scores and other alternative forms of notation for almost two decades now. I have also seized the opportunity to pay homage to my first clarinet teacher, the brilliant musician Algirdas Doveika, by including my take on a solo clarinet piece by Vykintas Baltakas, which Algirdas used to play beautifully himself.

    Wishing you lots of exciting musical discoveries!

    Liudas Mockūnas
    January 13, 2021, Kernavė, Lithuania

    Includes unlimited streaming of Liudas Mockūnas "Polylogues" (2xCD) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.     ... more
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  • Full Digital Discography

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about

DIETRICH EICHMANN (*1966)
FLIGHT FOR LIUDAS for soprano saxophone and string quartet (2004)

I met Liudas in 2003 when we shared the Music Omi Summer Residency in Hudson, NY. Over the years we’ve played a few concerts in a trio with American percussionist Jeff Arnal. That way I became very familiar with Liudas’s instrumental skills and his unique, inspiring improvisations. He heard a recording of the concerto Prayer to the Unknown Gods of the People Without Rights for large ensemble and improvising soloist Peter Brötzmann, which I wrote in 2002, and wanted to play this piece. But such a large-scale project was difficult to organize, so I suggested writing a new piece for him and he commissioned me to do so.
Prayer to the Unknown Gods… is a kind of portrait or vehicle for Brötzmann, in the sense that Duke Ellington wrote for the soloists of his orchestra. The musicians could fully do their own thing, while the result was as much Ellington’s music. Similarly, Flight for Liudas was inspired by Liudas’s improvisations and became a vehicle for an improvising soprano saxophonist and string quartet. As in Prayer…, the soloist has total freedom of choice regarding what to play – or NOT to play – because nothing is written for the saxophone, while the string quartet is precisely notated. Whereas Brötzmann improvised his part reacting directly to what he heard from the orchestra, Liudas decided to study the string quartet score thoroughly, so he could work with elements from the composition. Occasionally, he would even anticipate certain motifs and interweave material from the score into new structures of his own complex musical mind.

Dietrich Eichmann

As the title speaks for itself, this piece is a dedication to me by a good friend from Germany, the composer and improvising pianist Dietrich Eichmann. It’s a very interesting piece of music written in a complex way for strings and at the same time providing the soloist with total freedom of improvisation (flight).

Liudas Mockūnas

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from Liudas Mock​ū​nas "Polylogues" (2xCD), released March 21, 2021
DIETRICH EICHMANN (*1966)
FLIGHT FOR LIUDAS for soprano saxophone and string quartet (2004)

Liudas Mockūnas (soprano saxophone),
Chordos String Quartet: Ieva Sipaitytė (1st violin), Vaida Paukštienė (2nd violin), Robertas Bliškevičius (viola), Povilas Jacunskas (cello)

Recorded live in 2017 at the Grand Hall of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius by Arūnas Zujus.

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Liudas Mockūnas Vilnius, Lithuania

Lithuanian saxophonist and clarnetist (born 1976)focused on improvised, avantgarde jazz, experimental and conteporary classical music. Among his stage partenrs were and are Andrew Hill, Copenhagen Art Ensemble, Mikko Innanen, Stefan Pasborg, Barry Guy, Agusti Fernandez, Marc Ducret, Mats Gustafsson, Evan Parker, Peter Evans, Nate Wooley, Ottomo Yoshihide, Kazutoky Umezu, Vladimir Tarasov ... more

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