Olja Jelaska: Butterflies — three movements for seven instruments
About the release
Olja Jelaska dedicated her three-movement composition Butterflies, three movements for seven instruments, to the Cantus Ensemble, which premiered her last movement, Rose Petals, at the end of June 2005, as part of the Scene Amadeo program. The full premiere followed in November of the same year at the inaugural concert of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) Cities of Music cycle, which was broadcast live on twelve European radio stations.
The atmospheric composition, woven from three short, vivid miniatures of flickering tonal colours, created as a kind of work in progress, like most of the composer’s works, has an extra-musical title, thus integrating the musical content with everything experienced by her senses. Olja Jelaska did not seek inspiration for the virtuoso composition that at its core celebrates life, nature, and existence outside of music, but rather connected the content to an experience from nature. Why Butterflies? According to the composer, “the fragile spindle-shaped animals that represent a symbol of lightness, transparency, transformation and transience are an expression of the creative life force in the world of human domination, where opposites reign, such as the density of matter and the leaden weight of mental constructs and the same emotional states. As a gentle reminder of the spirit that there is something in everything, barely noticeable to the senses, but so close to the spirit, simple, childishly playful and authentic – which can be found in every moment in which we are present, and not trapped in our own thoughts, because of which we sometimes miss the magnificent creation of each moment. Has the playfulness that is the foundation of all authenticity disappeared? No, it has not, it is there, beneath all the roughness, aggression, beneath all the layers of pain and vulnerability – of everything that is not authentic and that which Life does not actually support – patiently waiting because it knows that the original and authentic foundation is the premise of every life expression that cannot be destroyed.” Olja Jelaska was awarded the Josip Štolcer Slavenski Vjesnik Award for 2005 for her composition Butterflies.
(Bojana Plećaš Kalebota)
HDS, Cantus, 2025.
Edition Number: Can. 389-3626
ISMN 979-0-801363-62-6
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