Madli Marje Gildemann: ““Osmosis” (2022, written for the Mondrian Ensemble) is the first part of a three-part cycle titled “Three Studies on Plant Biology,” which, together with the remaining parts (“Transpiration” and “Photosynthesis”), forms a collection of closely interrelated biological processes. The piece is written for prepared piano, violin, viola, and cello, and represents a musical interpretation of the movement of water particles in plants and trees, and how pressure and tension continuously affect this process. Many of the sounds used are inspired by recordings from the Hönggerberg forest, as well as recordings collected during my studies using ultra-sensitive and specialized equipment that allows us to hear what is happening both in the soil and inside the trees. In “Osmosis,” sounds with specific meanings—such as the so-called clicking sounds caused by drought periods or strong water pressure—are combined with flowing string sounds, resulting in a very poetic sonic journey through an imaginary tree.”

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…nothing but a halo… (2026, premiere) for octet and electronics.

The existence of plants is, by itself, a global modification of the cosmic environment, in other words of the world that they penetrate and by which they are penetrated. It is already by existing that plants modify the world globally without even moving, without beginning to act. […]

One must then generalize this find and conclude that the existence of every living being is necessarily a cosmogonic act and that a world is always, simultaneously, a condition of possibility and a product of the life that it hosts. […]

If any living being is a being in the world, every environment is a being within beings. The world and the living are nothing but a halo, an echo of the relation that binds them together.

(Emanuele Coccia, The Life of Plants (2016), English transl. Dylan J. Montanari (2018))

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Jüri Reinvere: “Flüchtig, für immer (Fleeting, Forever, 2025) is only an apparent paradox in the title of this short quintet. The moment is fleeting, yet it can contain eternity. I have been preoccupied with such temporal relationships for a long time. Titles like …a second, a century… or t.i.m.e speak of this. Music can manipulate our perception of time, sometimes even suspending it. This is exactly what interests me.

At the same time, this quintet is a complement to Franz Schubert’s Trout Quintet. It adopts the same instrumentation and simultaneously provides a compositional commentary on it. It also captures the mood of a summer gathering of friends, which is already present in Schuber’s work—that summer of 1819 when the quintet was composed, and to which it has now granted permanence. Fleetingness and duration connect with the summer mood in a romantic way, much like how the poetry of English Romantics has occupied me in my chamber and orchestral music, and the music of the Romantic era in my three operas.”

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Marianna Liik: “The starting point for the piece The Sound Between Sounds (2026, premiere) is a set of initial chords, around which the musical material begins to slowly take shape. Through these sonic combinations, the work brings out the points of contact and the borderlands of harmonies—moments where one sound fades and another is just beginning to emerge. The transitions are not merely blends; occasionally, a sound stream or impulse with a clearer contour detaches from the overall texture, surfacing for a moment before merging back into the surrounding sound.”

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Madli Marje Gildemann: “Photosynthesis (2022) is the third and final part of the cycle “Three Studies on Plant Biology”. Photosynthesis is a process occurring in plants during which solar energy is converted into chemical energy. Although the primary source of inspiration during the creation of the piece was the so-called translation of the raw materials of photosynthesis (water, $CO_2$, and minerals) into musical textures and figures, I have—similarly to the first (“Osmosis”) and second (“Transpiration”) parts of the cycle—tried to leave as much room as possible for the listener’s imagination and let everyone perceive all the works in their own way.”

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Chant harmonique II (2026, premiere) for double bass and 7 instruments. Lauri Jõeleht: “The story of this piece dates back to 2014, when I wrote a solo work for viola, premiered by the superb violist Garth Knox. That piece focused on playing natural harmonics on the viola. I eventually managed to create a version for viola and ensemble, which was first performed by Garth Knox and Ensemble U: in the autumn of 2020. My new work continues the exploration of the sound world of natural harmonics, but this time the focus is on the double bass with its rich spectrum of overtones. Upon closer inspection of the double bass repertoire, I was surprised to find that natural harmonics are frequently used on this instrument, even in classical repertoire, for playing melodies in the high register. In this piece, the double bass is predominantly in a soloist role, though it occasionally recedes into the background to allow other instruments to come forward.”