Famous nowadays British composer and one of the leaders of new music in Europe, Jonathan Harvey (born 1939), will be visiting in "World Music Days" – the biggest contemporary music event to ever be held in Lithuania, beginning in Autumn. Particularly distinguished in the sphere of electronic and acoustic music, Harvey meshes Eastern philosophy with Christian ideas of the West. His open mindedness and constant attention to spirituality will take listeners on a musical voyage from the heights of Tibet to England’s cathedrals.

By request of the festival, Harvey is composing a new piece for the unique Dutch and Spanish violoncello octet "Conjunto Iberico". This is the first time in the history of Lithuanian festivals that a musical composition is ordered from a foreign author (Premiere - October 26).
The Latvian Radio Choir, known Europe-wide, and famous British conductor James Wood, will perform the composer’s “portrait” concert (October 31). We shall see Harvey’s “calling card” – the piece "Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco" ("I Lament the Dead, I Call the living") – as an audiovisual installation at St. Jacob’s Church in Vilnius (October 25, 26), and his Buddhist idea inspired orchestral pieces "…towards a Pure Land" and "Songs of Li Po" – at concerts of the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra (October 24, Festival Opening) and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra (October 27).
The composer will also give lectures, hold creative workshops, and consult performers, as he was part of the jury selecting musical compositions for the festival.

Due to his interest in electronic music and loyalty to European innovation ideas, combined with his search for “spirituality,” seeking inspiration in religious systems of the Eastern World, Jonathan Harvey is often referred to as the British Stockhausen. However, the beginning of his compositional journey is associated not only with the bright post-war avant-garde figure that he met upon arriving in Germany in 1966, after having completed his studies at Cambridge University, but also with the classic of British music, Benjamin Britten, who was the one to initially advise young Harvey to undertake composing. Later Harvey worked ten years at the IRCAM – the famous Institute for music/acoustic research and coordination in Paris, run by another European avant-garde music master Pierre Boulez. It was expressly here that Harvey created one of his still most popular compositions, "Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco". With the help of electronics tools he impressively mixed a recording of his son’s voice, chanting trebly at the Winchester Cathedral Choir, with the sound of the cathedral’s bell. The wording engraved on the gigantic bell – “Horas avolantes numero mortuos plano, vivos ad preces voco” (“I count the feeling hours, I lament the dead, I call the living to prayer”) – laid the groundwork for the composition’s text.

In 2007 Jonathan Harvey got the Grand Prize at the Giga-Hertz-Award for his extensive accomplishments in the sphere of electronic and acoustic music. Especially significant among other musical genres, are Harvey’s compositions for choir, of which many are intended for church performance (the mentioned Church Opera "Passion and Resurrection").
In the "World Music Days", the Latvian Radio Choir, conducted by James Wood – the first to have conducted many of Harvey’s compositions – will perform "Marahi" for choir a cappella, where adoration of the Virgin Mary meets the worship of the Buddhist Goddess Varahi (based on Latin chants for the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the English version of the Renaissance hymn in praise of the Blessed Virgin, and traditional Buddhist prayers to the Goddess Varahi in Sanskrit, 1999), "Ashes Dance Back" for choir and electronics (according to the English Jala Al-Din Rumi translation: "Loves Fire" and "The Way of Passion", 1997), and the more extensive "The Summer Cloud’s Awakening" for choir, violoncello and electronics (based on Richard Wagner’s opera "Tristan und Isolde" and he English translation of Shakyamuni texts, 2001). The latter two compositions were ordered and performed for the first time by the New London Chamber Choir, lead by James Wood.

Touched by the Eastern way of thinking, and “gentle, contemplative and exquisitely beautiful", according to "The Times", are his "Songs of Li Po" (based on the English translation of Li Po texts, 2002), to be performed at the World Music Days by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra (LCO), conducted by Robertas Šervenikas, and mezzo-soprano Nora Petročenko. As "Opera Magazine" wrote following the opera: „the theme is a Buddhist renunciation of life, played out against a background of numinous natural beauty. In setting these texts so close to his heart Harvey has produced an eloquent essay in finely-drawn string sonorities.“

Since 2005, Jonathan Harvey has been a residing composer at the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The composition "…towards a Pure Land", which will be played by the LSSO at the Festival Opening in Vilnius, was the first fruit from the composer’s collaboration with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. According to Harvey, "A Pure Land" is a state of mind beyond suffering: „It has also been described in Buddhist literature as a landscape – a model of the world to which we can aspire. Those who live there do not experience ageing, sickness or any other suffering. There is no poverty or fighting (...). The environment is completely pure, clean, and very beautiful, with mountains, lakes, trees, and delightful birds revealing the meaning of Dharma. (…)“

According to "The Sunday Times", Jonathan Harvey “is a rare spirit, ever in search of the new and numinous".

World Music Days Information