We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.
/

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €2 EUR  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    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
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      €15 EUR

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    15
    releases

    Get all 15 Liudas Mockūnas releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of MATS GUSTAFSSON-LIUDAS MOCKŪNAS "Watching a dog. Smiling", Pacemaker, Liudas Mockūnas "Polylogues" (2xCD), Liudas Mockūnas In Residency at Bitches Brew, "Vers la Flamme", NOX, "Improdimensions", Liudas Mockūnas "Hydro 2", and 7 more. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      €126.80 EUR or more (20% OFF)

     

about

ARVYDAS MALCYS (*1957)
SAXCHORD for tenor saxophone and string quartet (2007)

This work consists of three movements performed without breaks. The first begins with an introduction and the soloist’s recitative that prefaces a long exposition (Allegro vivo) filled with monotonous, gradually accelerating repetitions in the strings, like shimmering colours in a lambent landscape. The second movement stands in sharp contrast with the first and starts with the soloist’s free “Meditation,” in which time seems to halt and sink in the timbral mist. The ensuing pensive episode (Misterioso) brings the saxophone cadenza, while the delicate Adagio grows into Allegro by the end of the movement, which reiterates the somewhat modified solo recitative of the first movement. The playful, light Scherzo in the third movement, with flaunting saxophone virtuosity against the backdrop of muted pizzicato strings, reaches Furioso in the finale and, gradually ebbing away, dissipates into silence.

Beata Baublinskienė

A piece for tenor saxophone and string quartet by Arvydas Malcys, dedicated to the Chordos Quartet and me. My fascination with this work compelled me to repeatedly programme it in concerts where I have performed it not only with the quartet but also with a chamber orchestra – a version written at my request by the composer. The piece is virtuosic in the classical sense, counterbalanced with a dreamy middle movement called “Meditation”. But it could also be conceived as a vehicle for a crazed soloist to blow on top of the string quartet’s steady grooves and restless lines. This shifted perspective becomes especially conspicuous in the grand finale (Scherzo), which was originally meant to be light, easy-going music. In contrast, we interpret it by slowing down the tempo and adding a lot of weight, while the soloist makes a detour from the Western European musical tradition to the Middle East by adding ‘non-traditional’ scales and quarter tones to the improvised lines. Later the piece reaches its final climax, closing with a hysterical improvised duo between cello and saxophone.

Liudas Mockūnas

credits

from Liudas Mock​ū​nas "Polylogues" (2xCD), released March 21, 2021
ARVYDAS MALCYS (*1957)
SAXCHORD for tenor saxophone and string quartet (2007)

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

Recorded in 2020 at the MAMA Studios in Vilnius by Arūnas Zujus and Vytautas Bedalis

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Liudas Mockūnas image

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

contact / help

Contact Liudas Mockūnas

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Report this track or account

If you like Liudas Mockūnas, you may also like:

Bandcamp Daily  your guide to the world of Bandcamp

On Bandcamp Radio

Featuring interviews with LA music scene pillar Kamasi Washington, and new London-based duo Mrcy.

listen now