Marius Baranauskas was educated at the Salomeja Neris Secondary School and was trained as a pianist at the Balys Dvarionas Music School in Vilnius (1984-1996). In 1996, he went on to study composition with Assoc. Prof. Rimantas Janeliauskas at the Lithuanian Academy of Music, from which he obtained MA in composition in 2002. In 2003, he re-entered the academy to pursue post-graduate studies in composition. As a student at the LAM, Marius Baranauskas has also participated in a number of international courses and workshops for composers, including International Master Classes for Composers in Buckow, Germany (1999), led by Osvaldas Balakauskas (Lithuania) and Folke Rabe (Sweden), intense course "Composition and Musical Technologies" at the Tampere Conservatory, Finland (2001), International Courses for Composers in Villecroz, France, under the tutelage of Noel Lee (2002), Baltic Courses for Young Composers in Dundaga, Latvia (2002, 2004), International Young Composers Meeting in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands (2003), under the tutelage of Louis Andriessen, Martijn Padding, Roderik de Man, David Lang and Richard Ayres, and International Workshop for Composers and Musicologists in Warsaw (2003), led by Luca Francesconi, Marco Stroppa, Horatiu Radulescu, Ivan Fedele, Zbigniew Bargielski and others.

His works have been performed at various national and international events, including Youth Chamber Music Days in Druskininkai (1998-2004), "Arena" Contemporary Music Festival in Riga (2002), "Jauna muzika" Electronic Music Festival in Vilnius (2004), "Gaida" Contemporary Music Festival in Vilnius (2004). In 2003, his composition "Road with Cypress and Star", written especially for the Dutch ensemble "de ereprijs", was performed by the dedicatee at the "Gelderse Music Summer" and "Gaudeamus Music Week". The same year his electronic piece "NUNC" was cited as best Lithuanian electro-acoustic composition of the year 2003. In 2004, Marius Baranauskas was awarded 3rd Prize at the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award in Japan for the symphonic composition "Talking".

STYLE

According to Marius Baranauskas, music was not initially his field of creativity. In his childhood and teen years, he used to express his ideas by the means of literature and photography which then seemed more approachable and easier in handling than the musical medium. Literature and photography are still among his favourite pursuits, whereas in music he is preoccupied with the new ways to extend the limits of imagination by 'translating' words into musical sounds and timbres. At the present time he is particularly concerned with timbre as one of the primary elements of his musical language.

It was in "Talking" that Baranauskas first applied the method of his own invention whereby he subjectively attributes acoustic and timbral equivalents to every sound of the spoken language. According to this technique of 'rendition', vowels are being translated into continuous, sustained sounds, and consonants into continuous intoned and unintoned sounds, or accented strokes. At the same time, it provides a host of variables, such as timbre, rhythm, pitch, volume, articulation, semantic linkage with the chosen text, combinations of the acoustically 'rendered' sounds and sung texts, etc, thus enabling the composer to come up with each time different solution to a given phonic material.

His electronic compositions reveal further exploration of the manifold possibilities inherent in this verbal-musical game - from the studies of individual sounds in "NUNC" (2003), where the composer displays remarkable skill and versatility in manipulating the electronically processed timbres defined by acoustic qualities of the four letters, to one of his most recent electroacoustic compositions, "Let" for soprano and electronics (2004), in which human voice is treated as timbre delicately coloured by the vowels and consonants of the text and woven into the electronic texture through various transformations and distortions of voice.

While Marius Baranauskas is still shaping his musical idiom, his works already stand out for refined formal solutions, perfect musical timing and resourceful use of orchestral colours, a strong sense of purport in development of musical processes and subtle references to the experiential universe lying beyond the music itself.

WORKS
 
Orchestra

Silence: Expanse... (Here We Stopped and Could No Longer Hear It)
str orch
2000
11'

Talking
3333-4331-pf-cel-hrp-3perc-timp-str
2002
13'

Chamber

Movement
perc ens
1998
5'45

A Step in a Vacuum
fl-cl-pf-perc
1999
13'30

Stephan's Quintet
2vn-va-vc-db
1999
9'20

IT (beams... shadows... beyond...)
2perc
2004
10'

Vocal

A Thought
text by Marius Baranauskas (Lith)
2T-2B
1998
8'

On the Seashore of Endless Worlds
text by Rabindranath Tagore (Eng)
SATB-pf
2002
9'

Road With Cypress and Star
text by Vincent van Gogh (Eng)
Bar-2fl-cl-asax-barsax-hn-tp-2tb-tu-perc-elec gui-bass gui-pf
2002
6'

Monologue
TTBarBB(SAATB)
2004
2'~20'

Choir

Gloria
liturgical text (Latin)
satb-org-perc
1998
21'

Echo Above the Silent Stone
satb
2001
6'

Electro-acoustic

Illusion
tape
2001
14'

NUNC
tape
2003
17'40

Let
text by Rabindranath Tagore (Lith)
S-tape
2004
11'40
CD Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre LMIPCCD025, 2004

Green Noise
tape
2004
12'