Apoksiomen
for flute, guitar, viola, and cello
commissioned by Ensemble Illyrica
recording by Ensemble Illyrica (Nika Bauman, Marko Ferlan, Hiwote Tadesse, and Iva Casian-Lakos)
Program Note:
Apoksiomen is inspired by the statue of the same name (Apoxyomenos in English).
Found in the water around Orjule in Croatia’s Kvarner Bay, the statue was sunken for
over 2000 years near the island where all of my grandparents were born. My piece is
inspired by the statue’s journey: beginning sunken, with only glimmers of sunlight
piercing the waters around the statue, then emerging from the water, and finally
repiecing and restoring the statue.
Much of the melodic material is derived from a folk song, “Lošinjanke moje drage mile,”
which uses a traditional two-part singing technique from Kvarner. I processed a
recording of the song through the audio processing software Max. The software
transcribed the recording into notation, giving multiple possibilities for each instant of the
track. I selected my motives from these fragments and developed them for Ensemble
Illyrica’s four instruments.
Written for Ensemble Illyrica, a group of Croatian musicians, I wanted to embrace our
shared Croatian cultural heritage in my music through these two Croatian influences.