Arvydas Malcys

Music of Lithuanian composer Arvydas Malcys (b. 1957) has been performed around the world, featured in contemporary and academic music festivals. His works have been awarded various prizes and included in international competitions. Malcys’ music stems from the idea of “poetics of music”. The composer sees originality not as a need to be different or “innovative” but rather as an attempt to grasp his own roots and origins of different phenomena surrounding him. The composer is not interested in contemporary art tendencies proclaiming elitism, distance and abstraction. He does not attempt to create a “new listener” on the contrary he turns to those realms which the surrounding counterculture tends to annihilate. His artistic language is undisguised and understandable; it ignores vague and distorted rules of artistic games. The composer does not want to turn his music into mathematics or grammar, he seeks his music to address the most important issues: human passion, struggle, rise and fall, love, death and friendship, loneliness, evanescence and eternity. “In my music the listener should feel a certain cultural milieu and discern the commonalities between musical signs and accents. That shouldn’t make him obliged or distressed to feel that he lacks knowledge or understanding or make him come to the conclusion – if there is something I don’t understand, that means it is art…”, says the composer. Instrumental music makes up the most significant part of Malcys’ creative output. In a number of his works for various instrumental settings, the tendencies of absolute music fit well with nearly expressionistic imagery and sound poetry reminiscent of impressionism; a feel for neoclassical forms with aleatory and a penchant for colourful textures and specific sound effects. Having a discriminating ear, he takes special interest in timbre possibilities of different instruments in various registers of their range. Well familiar with peculiarities of instruments, especially strings, Malcys manipulates manifold expressional possibilities of individual instruments and their combinations and thereby shapes them to serve as strongly-flavoured personifications, well-nigh “theatrical” characters. His music is fraught with contrast, grotesque and irony.

Malcys graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music twice, once in 1980 receiving a diploma in cello performance (under Prof. D. Svirskis) and in 1989 a diploma in composition (under Prof. V. Laurušas).

His compositions earned recognition in various composers’ competitions. In 2004, he was awarded Third Prize for the symphonic composition Only Heaven Above Us at the Sinfonia Baltica International Composers’ Competition in Riga, and First Prize for both his Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra (2005) and Saxchord for tenor saxophone and string quartet (2008) at the Juozas Karosas Composition Competition in Vilnius. In 2006, he became a laureate of the composers’ competition “Mozart 250” in Moscow for his In memoriam for chamber orchestra. In 2007, his Concerto No 2 for flute and orchestra Cantus sirenum was chosen as a recommended work at the Haifa International Flute Festival and in 2009 his Narcissus was included in the obligatory program at the Max Rostal viola competition in Berlin. Malcys has collaborated with a number of renowned performers including M. Rostropovich, Y. Bashmet, D. Geringas, D. Shapovalov, M. Rachlevsky, M. Grauwels, S. Sondeckis, M. Fedotova and F. Lednev.