Rūta Vitkauskaitė

Programme Note

I have known John Woolrich for quite a few years now, and long before even considering moving to the UK. We first met in Latvia at the composers’ course, and we have kept in touch ever since. While still living in Lithuania, I used to run quite a lot of new music projects, some of them quite grandiose, and John was a frequent visitor. I recall he once spent over a month there, first teaching Composers’ Course, and then accompanying us on a trip to the seaside concert tour. On another occasion, we invited John for the concert of his music organised in Čiurlionis’ house in Vilnius, one item on the programme being his violin and piano duet, Im Ruhigen Tal, performed by myself. I remember the Lithuanian audience enjoying John’s music, while I was then thinking it was very different from new music in Lithuania – more melodic, elaborate, romantic. With my piece, Džonas Vulričas, I imagined what would happen if John actually stayed in Lithuania, and adapted his style to Lithuanian contemporary music (which is often more based on repetition, fragmentation, rhythmical or textural development). You might be able to hear John’s motifs, albeit developed in a very different style. The title – Džonas Vulričas – is in fact John Woolrich’s name, as it is being pronounced and spelled when in Lithuania.