María Eugenia Luc: Jing

(Submitted by Musikagileak)

María Eugenia Luc (b. 1958), Italian-Argentinian composer, is Artistic Director of the Kuraia Ensemble (Group of Contemporary Music) and professor at Musikene – Higher School of Music of the Basque Country. She studied composition in Argentina (National University), in Italy (Accademia Chigiana, Civica Scuola), and in France (University of Paris), receiving technical-aesthetic orientations under the guidance of Dieter Schnebel, Franco Donatoni, Ennio Morricone, and Brian Ferneyhough, among others.

She has received awards for her music by the Instituto I.I.L.A. of Rome, I.M.E.B.-Bourges, SGAE, the Basque Government, Melómano de Oro distinction (specialized magazine Melómano). Her compositions have been premiered in venues and festivals in Europe, Asia and America: Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Kunitachi College of Music (Tokyo), Hochschule für Musik (Berlin), Royal Academy of Music (London), Palazzo Chigi Saracini (Siena), Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory (Milan), Guggenheim Museum (Bilbao), Reina Sofía Centre of Art (Madrid), the ISCM World Music Days Tallin (Estonia), Quincena Musical (Basque Country), Musica Strasbourg, and others. María Eugenia Luc’s output has been performed by prestigious soloists such as Mario Caroli, Harry Sparnaay, Pierre Strauch, Séverine Ballon, Claude Delangle; ensembles such as Taller Sonoro, Plural Ensemble, Proxima Centauri, EBM, and the following orchestras: Euskadiko Orkestra Sinfonikoa, Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa, Buenos Aires National Symphony Orchestra, Rosario Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Maestros Robert Treviño, Michal Nesterowicz, Pablo González,  Manuel Nawri, among others. Ms. Luc has also been invited to lecture in seminars and conferences by international institutions: Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst de Vienna (Austria), Hochschule für Musik and Universität der Künste in Berlin, Casa del Suono and Higher School of Music  “Arrigo Boito” (Parma – Italy), Higher School of Music  “Giuseppe Verdi” (Milano – Italy) and others.

Between 2008 and 2015, Luc wrote a cycle of 8 works inspired by the breathing techniques of Chi kung entitled “de aire y luz” (“of air and light”). Jing (2013) is one of them and means Peaceful. Jing is the largest scale piece of the cycle “de aire y luz”, which was commissioned by Nicolas Rauss, the artistic director of the Rosario Symphony Orchestra (Argentina), written for the entire orchestra and performed in this city in November 2013.

In ten minutes approximately, Jing explores different sonorities and densities inside a climax of pleasant circular evolution. The piece is segmented in four sections, defining fractal proportions between them: each segment suggests the different processes that happen inside the conscience, in a meditative state of contemplation. The three first sections constitute different kinds of accumulative evolutions and build a growing process, which reaches its peak in the third section. The fourth and last section closes these growing stages with a long and cyclic movement defined by two clarinets, while the rest of the orchestra plays the accompaniment, which is not necessarily less important.