Lithuanian flute trio Fleitų 3 explores the boundaries between composition and free improvisation, transforming the familiar sound of the flute through extended techniques, unusual timbres, and experimental textures. Their performances move between delicate, immersive soundscapes and intense, dissonant sonic worlds.
Salomėja Kalvelytė, Mėta Gabrielė Pelegrimaitė and Kristupas Gikas have performed extensively across Lithuania and Europe and collaborated with a wide range of contemporary and improvisational musicians. On August 6, the trio performed in Ukraine as part of the Dzerkalo chamber music festival, held in Lviv.
We spoke with the musicians before their arrival in Ukraine. In this interview, we talk about their approach to improvisation, the possibilities of the flute, and the ways they find a common musical language as an ensemble.
Maybe you’d like to say a few words about how the three of you came together as an ensemble—how you met and how your collaboration began. I think that’s something not many people know, and it would be interesting to hear the story.
Kristupas: We met quite naturally. We’ve actually known each other for a long time. Two of us started playing in the same class when we were around ten years old. The other two also knew each other from different trips and musical activities. Eventually, all three of us met at the Academy of Music, where we began practicing together.
At some point we realized that this combination of three flutes was quite unique. We started giving concerts, creating different kinds of programs, collaborating with other artists, and that’s how it all developed.
Mėta: I’d add that the actual idea for the trio came while we were studying together in the master’s programme in free improvisation and contemporary music. During our studies we experimented with many different instrumental combinations, and since all three of us were interested in improvisation, we decided to try a constellation of three flutes. It seemed both challenging and exciting.
We played our first concert, really enjoyed it, and then continued experimenting.
Salomeja: At first we only played concert flutes, but later we expanded to different instruments—bass flute, alto flute and concert flute.
You mentioned the master’s programme in improvisation. Could you tell us a little about that? Improvisation isn’t something that people usually imagine as being “taught.” How does it work at your academy? How do students actually study improvisation? It’s quite an unusual programme, especially from a Ukrainian perspective.
Mėta: It really is a unique programme. It’s been running for only about ten or eleven years, so it’s still relatively new.
Kristupas: I was in either the second generation of students.
Mėta: Yes, so it’s still a very young programme. We all came from different musical backgrounds—some from jazz, some from classical music. One of the first things we had to do was almost forget everything we already knew and search for new ways of expressing ourselves.
We studied with several teachers. One was the saxophonist Liudas Mockūnas, who has also performed in Ukraine. We also worked with pianist and drummer Arnas Mikalkėnas, and with composer Vykintas Baltakas, who focused more on contemporary music.
I wouldn’t describe the studies as highly structured. They were based much more on listening, discussing, experimenting and discovering things together than on following a fixed method.
One particularly valuable aspect was that we had many workshops with musicians and teachers from abroad. That gave us the opportunity to play with them, learn from them, and gradually enter the world of free improvisation. Speaking of Liudas Mockūnas, I think he has performed together with the Ukrainian double bassist Mark Tokar. I believe Mark has also visited Lithuania several times, perhaps even to teach.
Improvisation is based on freedom, but even freedom usually has some kind of framework. What kinds of written or unwritten rules have the three of you developed for your ensemble?
Salomeja: Yes, definitely. Sometimes we simply discuss things beforehand. Sometimes we actually write them down. We might prepare small themes, short melodies or simple structures. Sometimes it’s just a drawing—a single line with waves—and everyone interprets it however they feel. Other times we write verbal instructions. We may decide to focus on particular extended flute techniques or agree on specific ways of playing together.
One programme we created worked like that. We simply moved from one extended technique to another, letting each transition develop naturally. That became the entire structure of the performance, and I think it worked really well.
Another approach was based on composing very small melodic ideas. If I remember correctly, that was Kristupas‘s idea. Each of us brought two or three short musical fragments, and then we improvised around them, transformed them and rebuilt them during performance. That approach eventually became the basis for our second album.
Kristupas: Sometimes one of us simply arrives at rehearsal with an idea or an image in mind—something difficult to describe in words. We explain that image to the others, and then we try to realise it through sound.
Sometimes the inspiration comes from the place itself. We’ve often performed in churches or recorded in churches. Those spaces have such distinctive acoustics that they immediately suggest musical ideas. In those situations we don’t even need to talk. We simply begin playing, and somehow everything becomes clear.
During a performance, are there moments when everything suddenly goes in a completely different direction from what you originally planned?
Kristupas: Very often.
Mėta: If we’ve prepared a framework beforehand, we usually stay somewhere within it. But if, during the performance, we discover something particularly enjoyable or playful, then we may completely change direction.
Sometimes we don’t discuss anything before a concert at all. We simply walk on stage and say, “Let’s see what happens.”
We also have different personal ideas about what improvisation actually is. For me, improvisation is quite structured. I think of it as building a form in real time. I really enjoy moments when you can hear that everyone is making conscious musical decisions together—that feeling of complete unity.
At the same time, thinking too much about structure can sometimes limit your freedom. That’s why it’s also wonderful to completely let go and allow three totally different musical lines or unexpected moments to emerge.
As Kristupas and I have discussed many times, we sometimes realise afterwards that we were each imagining completely different musical directions during the same performance.
Kristupas: That’s true. After concerts we often talk about what happened, and sometimes we discover that each of us thought the music was heading somewhere entirely different. Yet somehow it still worked perfectly. Those different internal perceptions of the same musical moment often become part of what makes the performance successful.
Could you tell me a little about your feelings before and during concerts? After all these years of playing together, do you still feel nervous before an improvisation, knowing that literally anything can happen? And what does it feel like once you’re inside the music?
Mėta: I think we’re always a little nervous before performing—not because we’re afraid something will go wrong, but because we care. We want the performance to go well. We want to enjoy it ourselves, and we want the audience to enjoy it too.
Before concerts we sometimes do small exercises together—breathing exercises, physical contact exercises—and they really help because they strengthen the connection between us. I think that’s extremely important in improvisational music.
It’s not only about connecting intellectually but also emotionally and physically, and becoming aware of the atmosphere around you.
Salomeja: After performances we often discuss specific moments, and it’s interesting because we don’t always experience them in the same way.
Sometimes one of us loved a particular section while another wasn’t sure about it at all. Sometimes we all felt completely united, building something very powerful together. Other times our impressions are entirely different.
Personally, when I’m playing, I often lose all sense of time. I can play for what feels like hours without realizing how much time has actually passed. Sometimes I even need to look at the others to understand whether we’re approaching the end.
Afterwards we always talk about the performance, and those conversations are fascinating. Whether we all agree or disagree depends on many things: our mood beforehand, the space we’re playing in, the energy in the room, and how we’ve prepared ourselves. Sometimes we simply spend a little time together before the concert—not discussing the music itself, but just checking in with each other and sharing how we’re feeling.
Mėta: I’d add that our energy and emotional state before a concert which is incredibly important. If you’re stressed because of things outside the performance, that can really block your ability to play.
That’s why it’s essential to support each other and trust each other before we go on stage. If you’re overwhelmed or emotionally exhausted, it’s much harder to focus, calm down and become fully present in the music. The emotional energy that we bring into a performance has a huge influence on the concert itself.
Salomeja: We’re always very supportive of one another. I also remember that there were rehearsals where we barely played at all. At first I wondered why we had even met—we could just as easily have spent that time somewhere else.
But later I realised that those rehearsals weren’t only about music. They were also about spending time together and getting to know each other better. That personal connection has an enormous impact on our performances. The fact that we’re genuinely friends is incredibly important.
I’d also like to talk about your album Need for Flute. As I understand it, your upcoming concert in Lviv grows out of the material from this album. I’m curious because you’ve already performed this music many times. How have the pieces evolved over time? Are they now completely different from what was originally recorded? If your concert were recorded and released today, how different would it be from Need for Flute?
Mėta: The recording of the album actually came at the end of the Need for Flute period. We first wrote the pieces, then performed them on tour many times, and they kept evolving with every concert. They really changed from performance to performance.
Each piece begins with a small musical theme, but we improvise around it so freely that sometimes the original idea almost disappears beneath everything that develops around it. We always know where the music comes from, even if the audience can’t immediately hear the original theme.
By the time we recorded the album, we’d already performed the programme so many times that the music had crystallized. The recording captures the pieces at the end of that process.
As for the concert in Lviv, I wouldn’t think of it as an album presentation. I expect it to be much more focused on improvisation, while naturally carrying everything we’ve learned from both our first and second albums. That’s how I see it, at least.
Salomeja: After releasing the album we gave several concerts in Lithuania presenting it. Even then we didn’t simply perform the pieces one after another exactly as they appeared on the album.
Instead, we would improvise freely, and whenever one of us happened to introduce a theme from one of the pieces, the others would recognize it and follow wherever it led. I don’t think we even decided beforehand which pieces we would play.
I remember our last concert in the same chapel where we had recorded the album. It was wonderful to return to that space, but the music sounded completely different from the recording session. Partly that was because of the acoustics, and partly because there was an audience there—many local people had come.
I even remember moments when we weren’t entirely sure which piece we were actually playing.
Maybe it wasn’t exactly that, because many of the pieces are related. Even when I listen to the album now, I sometimes notice that several pieces share similar tonal centres, similar scales, similar moods, and even follow each other naturally, almost as if they were one continuous composition. Sometimes it’s genuinely difficult to tell where one piece ends and another begins.
Kristupas: Yes, that confusion happens quite often during performances. One of us may think we’re playing one piece, while another imagines we’re in a different one, but somehow everything still connects beautifully because the pieces share harmonic material or rhythmic ideas.
They merge naturally. Sometimes someone deliberately introduces a fragment from another piece. Other times someone only thinks that’s happening and responds accordingly.
It’s a very beautiful kind of confusion. Part of the reason is simply that we’ve played these pieces so many times. If we performed them exactly the same way every concert, we’d become bored ourselves.
We always want to surprise one another. We want to surprise ourselves as much as the audience. That curiosity keeps the music alive and fresh. So sometimes we intentionally create those moments of uncertainty without saying a single word beforehand.
As you prepare to come to Lviv, what kind of audience do you hope to meet? Do you expect listeners to understand the music intellectually, or is it more important simply to experience it? How should people approach your concert? What would you like them to know before listening?
Salomeja: I would simply encourage people to experience it. Just be present, listen, and hear how three flutes blend together.
Kristupas: For me, the emotional experience is much more important than the intellectual one.
Mėta: I don’t really have expectations about what the audience will be like, and I think that’s actually healthy. If you start worrying about whether people will like the music or understand it, those thoughts can interfere with your own performance.
Because of the festival classical context, I imagine there may be people who decide to leave during the concert because the music isn’t for them. And that’s perfectly fine.
If you don’t connect with something, or if it simply doesn’t speak to you, you don’t have to force yourself to understand it.
At the same time, I also expect there will be listeners who are genuinely interested in contemporary and experimental music. They may listen in a more analytical way. And that’s completely valid too. Our music can be approached from both perspectives.
You can simply experience it emotionally, but you can also pay attention to the timbres, the textures, the interaction between the instruments, and the conscious musical decisions we’re making while improvising. It’s not only about following intuition—we’re thinking while we play as well.
Kristupas: One of the audience members at a recent performance told me that they had never imagined music like this could exist. For me, that was one of the best compliments I could have received.
If you could answer one question that nobody ever thinks to ask about 3 Flutes, what would it be? Any behind-the-scenes secret you’re willing to let our readers in on?
Kristupas: Hey Fleitų3, how do you combine the outfits for each performance?
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