Rūta Vitkauskaitė

Programme Note

The inspiration for this piece came after I heard a Georgian male choir for the first time in my life when they visited Vilnius that year. I was absolutely stunned by the power and spirit of their song, and how one voice seamlessly joined the others, whether a third, a fifth above or below, and then moved step by step down, embedded with ornamentations. I tried to memorize the harmonic progressions while at the concert, but they were so elaborate and never followed a logical path. Cheierumo (or Cheyerumo) was my attempt to imitate the structures of Georgian singing and its spirit. The title is a word which I invented to resemble the music itself.