Songs of Sunset and Dawn

About

This is a concert presentation rather than a staged opera or theatre production. The programme juxtaposes Esa-Pekka Salonen's Piano Concerto with Raminta Šerkšnytė's Songs of Sunset and Dawn. Salonen's post-biological sound world, involving artificial intelligence and artificial life forms, is contrasted with Šerkšnytė's neo-romantic writing and exploratory playing techniques. Šerkšnytė's work is a dramatic composition for orchestra, choir and vocal soloists. Although it is also described as an oratorio-cantata, it avoids a conventional narrative and instead expresses experiences and states of mind inspired by Rabindranath Tagore's texts, translated into Lithuanian. Salonen's concerto is connected to science-fiction writer Stanisław Lem and imagines a post-biological culture in which artificial intelligence and robot birds produce music.