“Nerti”. How Lithuanian Artists Blend Improvisation, Field Recordings, and DIY Instruments

Dzvenyslava Safian

4 weeks ago

On August 7, the project Nerti will be presented in Ukraine, a work that transforms the violin through electronics, vocal improvisations, noise, and field recordings.

Lithuanian artists Lora Kmieliauskaitė and Dominykas Digimas will perform at Dzerkalo, the Lviv chamber music festival, offering a synthesis of experimental and contemporary classical scenes. Nerti stands out for its organic, live sonic qualities and its deep sensitivity to the process of creation.

Lora Kmieliauskaitė is a Lithuanian violinist and an active participant in various fields of music, theatre, and film production. The field of her musical activities spans many genres, including experimental and contemporary music. Lora’s performances often include fusions of different media, movements, and theatre.

I like to create things. And more than anything, I like being in music with people. Every piece I create and collide in with others — it’s the people who hold the whole thing together. The axis, the mess, the spark. Film and theater were really the very beginning of my “acting” into something. Since then, I’ve focused more on music. I took elements from performance — the speech, the words, the raw edges of language — and that constant, sharp awareness of the body. All of it carried over from theatre and film into my work, still rough in parts, and that’s fine.

Dominykas Digimas is a composer of the younger generation whose practice spans a wide range of sound and music practices. In addition to his work in the field of academic music, Dominykas is active in the contexts of sound art and performing arts.

Sharing what you discover when you are creating seems to be the thing that connects us the most, no matter what you are doing, or if it is just watching or listening to what someone else has created. To explore the world as it is and to share ways of experiencing it differently is for me one of the most meaningful ways I can operate on this earth.

Dominykas Digimas and Lora Kmieliauskaitė

What does contemporary Lithuanian music sound like? What themes are composers and performers exploring today? And how does interdisciplinarity shape new artistic practices? You’ll find the answers in this interview.

How did this collaboration come about

Dominykas Digimas: The idea started in 2023 when two friends asked me to play at their exhibition opening near the Neris River in Vilnius. The word “Nerti” is close in origin to the name of the river Neris, and also has several meanings in the Lithuanian language, such as to dive underwater or elsewhere, and also to crochet.

Lora and I had already collaborated on other projects, and I was also looking for new ways to express myself musically. I’ve worked with DIY instruments live before, but it’s always better to share those ideas with someone. Emotionally, aesthetically, musically Lora and I really understand each other in how we want the sound to flow.

At some point, it just all came together. We performed once, then again and it grew from there. For example, at the time, Lora was preparing her vinyl for which she asked me to create a piece. This was not a regular process; we decided to develop it by going on a residency in the north of Norway, outside the Arctic Circle. In the end, the album included not only that piece, but also two improvisations by our duo. Somehow, everything aligned — time, place, process.

Lora Kmieliauskaitė: The word “nerti’ means two things at once: ‘to dive’ — deep into water, and ‘to thread’ — to pick, collect, and weave things into a whole. Those two meanings reflect what we’re after in the sound and our playing, all the things we live through together, gathered and stitched back into the music. You just experience, and the sound holds that.

Each time, we start with some kind of structure: which instruments we’ll use, how we’ll play. But in the end, I love that moment when you lose control of what you thought you were going to do. You adjust mid-play. Maybe I planned to play a certain way, and suddenly I feel I should stay in one place longer or pick a different instrument. That intuitive shift, that “diving in,” is essential.

Dominykas Digimas: And for me, water is a strong metaphor of the “flow” in this project. When I play, I often feel like I’m underwater — different weight, pressure, air. It sounds poetic, but it’s real.

For different performances, I choose different instruments from my kit. If I’ve done something new at the time, I include that as well. These are mostly self-built instruments that resemble a kanklės (Lithuanian folk instrument) — boxes with strings.

New instruments sometimes appear unexpectedly. For example, when we were in New York, I didn’t bring the metal pipes I use as percussion instruments; I bought new ones from a local shop. They added new colours and sounds to our performance.

Each performance is a mix. If I have something new, I include it. If not, we go with the existing set. Lora also adjusts her setup. She started with a custom-made electric violin but often plays a baroque violin and bow now.

Lora Kmieliauskaitė: We even have a special “bow”. It’s shaped like an arch, with very loose hair. It allows me to play across all six or seven strings of kanklės at once, creating this massive, continuous chord.

Dominykas Digimas: And now, listening to Lora, I realize that in our duo, we’re doing pre-improvised music, but we have a strong classical background. So we’re not only searching for new sounds — we also bring a sense of form, of musical structure.

Each time, we improvise, but we’re still creating a composition. And our instruments aren’t just sound objects. They’re truly instruments, though experimental and far from traditional.

Exploratory mindset

Dominykas Digimas: We also use field recordings. For example, from our residency in the north. And every time we travel somewhere, we gather new material. That’s probably the one thing we prepare fresh each time. We use previous recordings but always add something from the place we’re in or from recent experiences.

These field recordings give a kind of framework for our performance. When we are preparing, rehearsing, we talk about texture, density, register, and instruments, but not rhythm or melody. It’s more about texture and sonic density. Sometimes we leave just the field recording playing.

And sometimes, during a performance, we grow the sonic material and realize there’s nowhere else to go. No climax, no return. So we just quietly put everything down, leave the field recording playing, and begin again. It might feel unresolved in the moment, but when we listen to the recording afterward, it feels like we arrived there very organically.

When I first got a recorder, I captured everything just out of curiosity. Now, I only use it when something really strikes me.

I’m interested in how attentive we are to sound. We often just move from point A to B, listening to music or our own thoughts, but so many sonic processes are happening around us. City soundscapes reflect nature: cycles of intensity, loudness, and quiet. There are sounds we don’t notice — the quiet ones masked by traffic or voices. I’m drawn to those quiet layers, the ones we usually miss.

Lora Kmieliauskaitė: Yes, and it opens up a completely different sound world. Over time, I stopped seeing myself as “a violinist” in this project. There’s my violin on the table, Dominykas’s DIY instruments, which we share between us anyway. But it’s never really about who plays what and sometimes we don’t even use the instruments we thought we would. Instruments stay untouched, and we find ourselves in fields we didn’t plan on entering.

When we started playing together, I would ask Dominykas to plan everything. I wanted structure, almost like a score. But now I’ve let that go. I might pick up the violin with a plan — “bells here, harmonics there” — and ten seconds in, I forget all that.

That’s the thing about “Nerti” music-making. We’re just traveling. Not as instrumentalists, but as musicians.

And sometimes, I don’t play violin at all. I just keep it on my knees and use other objects.

Traveling to Ukraine

Lora Kmieliauskaitė: It’s a joy. Truly. It felt like the most meaningful invitation I’ve ever received. Music belongs where people need it most. We hope that by sharing our sound, we can contribute something real. It’s a huge honor to perform in Ukraine.

Dominykas Digimas: A month ago, I was talking with a friend about performing music in these times. He plays in a band that does jazzy rock and roll and said he stopped. He couldn’t find the purpose anymore. I told him that we’ve been invited to this concert, to this festival. And I felt that this, right now, is something more important than our personal creative pursuits. “Nerti” is about being with the audience. In this sense, it seems like the most appropriate place and time to play it.

I’ve been to Ukraine before — to Kyiv, touring with a theater project. I know several Ukrainian composers we’ve met through concerts in Vilnius. Some were charity events, some not, but were still dedicated to Ukrainian music and important cultural topics.

I also took part in a theater project in Germany that used traditional Ukrainian music. It feels crucial to amplify this culture and its perspective in Europe. And now, we have the chance to come ourselves.

Of course, if we were going deeper into Ukraine, I’d be scared. I wanted to be prepared. But now, we feel we’re going to a safe place.

The Lithuanian contemporary music scene

Dominykas Digimas: Ten years ago, it would’ve been easier to answer this. Now it’s very diverse. There are many new young composers, many women composers, and a growing number of composition students. When I started my studies, there were 10 people who applied, and just four of us entered the studies. This year already 40 people have applied.

Composition is becoming more popular, partly because it includes electronic, experimental, and improvisational music. There’s also a strong mix of older and younger composers. I wouldn’t say we share the same aesthetic or style, but something unites the music. Not stylistic, maybe more about how we express ourselves.

People often say Lithuania has a “minimalist” music scene, but it’s more nuanced than that. The styles vary widely. At festivals in Vilnius, Kaunas, and Klaipėda, you hear completely different lineups. That mix creates new perspectives. The Baltic scene in general has become very connected over the past five years. Many joint projects now bring music from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia across Europe.

Each year, a Baltic country hosts a festival where ensembles from neighboring countries perform each other’s music. We share ideas and music, and the growing number of ensembles really helps.

Lora Kmieliauskaitė: Yes, the situation is alive. As Dominykas said, the Baltic Network is working well — commissioning, organizing, spreading the word. The Music Information Center also plays a big role.

Coming to Ukraine, we hope to create new ties — to bring more artists to Vilnius and invite some from Lviv. That’s one of our goals besides the concert itself. New collaborations, new sounds, new initiatives.

Dominykas Digimas: And a little sneak peek. We have plans for Lviv. We created a sound-based piece about Vilnius through field recordings and research, and we’re planning something similar for Lviv. Hopefully next year. We’ll walk the city, record, and create a composition based on the soundscape. And we’ll come back to perform it.

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