Lithuanian composer Justė Janulytė watches and listens intently to the mysterious wonders of our reality. Born in Vilnius in 1982, Janulytė’s pieces explore time and space through the large-scale texturing of sound, moving between minimalism, spectralism, and electroacoustic music. Because of this, listeners have often compared listening to her music to being bathed in an overflow of sumptuous harmonies. Individual details are submerged in the characteristic intensity of a wave, where the expansion and blending of instrumentation creates the sensation of moving endlessly through an unpredictable current. Janulytė has also taken inspiration from the visual elements of the natural world, such as shifting clouds, falling snow, and the way blood circulates through the body. This focus allows her compositions to explore the density of sound and the themes of renewal and immortality.
I spoke to Janulytė about musical metamorphosis, Rothko’s color philosophy, and composing for the cinema.
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