The Silent Voice

2024

22.11.2024

LMIC 166

The Silent Voice uses the piano to map the diversity of modernist and postmodernist music in the Baltic countries. It is the first solo piano album dedicated to brand-new works written by composers from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. As a student at the Juilliard School, I worked with Baltic expatriate composers. As a student at the Latvian Music Academy, I was the expatriate. Today, living and working in Finland, the music of the Baltics is still an essential part of my collaborative and artistic life. Each of these experiences has helped me understand the rich creativity of Baltic composers, who are so often unrecognised or misunderstood by audiences in North America and the rest of Europe.
For example, it is often assumed that the region’s most famous composers, such as Arvo Pärt, Pēteris Vasks, Ēriks Ešenvalds, and Bronius Kutavičius, represent their home countries’ singular achievements and overriding aesthetic preferences. The influence and international renown of these composers is important and their work is certainly very personally significant to me. However, this album offers a new perspective to these prevailing narratives by elevating other composers whose compositional language reflects a wider scope of musical influences, while maintaining a uniquely Baltic perspective.

Robert Fleitz