Galina Grigorjeva : Salve regina

Galina Grigorjeva, born in 1962 in Crimea, Ukraine, and now living in Estonia, has garnered international appreciation for the remarkably subtle and animated melodic style of her music. Her compositions are tightly linked to Slavonic sacred music as well as early European polyphony. Grigorjeva “orchestrates” polyphony with remarkable skill and grace, creating meaningful and beautiful harmonic flickers amidst fluid textures. She pays utmost attention to the expressiveness and significance of each interval and intonation. There is a lot of air and space for breathing in her music. Grigorjeva studied at the Simferopol Music School and Odessa Conservatoire. In 1991, she graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatoire under Prof. Yuri Falik and was engaged in postgraduate studies with Lepo Sumera at the Estonian Academy of Music 1994–1998. Galina Grigorjeva was appointed Composer-in-Residence at the NYYD Ensemble for the season 2006/2007. Now she works as a freelance composer and her music has been performed by all over the world by ensembles such as: Hortus Musicus (artistic director Andres Mustonen), Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir (conductor Paul Hillier), Moscow Chamber Orchestra (conductor Constantine Orbelian), Kremerata Baltica (artistic director Gidon Kremer), Moscow Patriarchate Choir (conductor Anatoly Grindenko), State Choir Latvija, percussion ensemble Kroumata (Sweden), Raschèr Saxophone Quartet, recorder player Conrad Steinmann (Switzerland), clarinettist Michel Lethiec (France) etc. The Estonian Radio has twice chosen Grigorjeva’s work to represent Estonia at the International Rostrum of Composers: On Leaving in 2000, in Amsterdam, and Lament in 2002, in Paris. She was awarded The Heino Eller Music Prize in 2003 and the Annual Prize of the Endowment for Music of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia in 2004 and 2013. In 2014, Grigorjeva was ascribed the The Order of the White Star Fourth Class. Grigorjeva’s CD In Paradisum was awarded the Estonian Music Prize in the category of Classical album in 2015. In 2020, Grigorjeva was given the Lepo Sumera Composition Award.

Grigorjeva’s Salve Regina for SATB chorus and string quartet was composed in 2013 as the result of a commission from Eesti Kontsert for the Theatre of Voices and YXUS Ensemble. According to the composer, “The string quartet does not have so much of an accompanying function, rather it constitutes a complement to the vocal ensemble. The work was recorded in a performance by Theatre of Voices and the YXUS Quartet under the direction of Paul Hillier on an all-Grigorjeva CD entitled Nature Morte released in 2016 on Ondine Records from which the recording included below is taken.