Neišeik, saulala (Don’t leave me, sun) was written in 2007 for the Latvian Youth Choir Kamer. Miškinis was one of seventeen composers commissioned as part of a large World Sun Songs project. Each composer was asked to consider the impact of the sun in their own lives. Intent on creating a piece imbued with the spirit of Lithuanian folklore Miškinis utilizes a fragment of a familiar Shepherd Song
The sun, my mother. This melancholy song is an elderly mother’s prayer for her only son to return after twenty-five years of service in the army. Lithuanian panpipes, called
skuduciai, play alongside the voices of the choir providing, the composer states, ‘an acoustic element, not an accompaniment’. The result is a musical ritual which can be developed by visual action from the choir.
from notes by Rupert Gough © 2010
