The recording project Northscapes weaves works-from the first decades of the twenty-first century by composers from the Nordic and Baltic countries of Europe-into a tapestry of soundscapes, vibrating between landscape and the imagination, between the external and internal, between nature and psyche. What these works for piano solo share is a particular attunement to nature, reverberating out of the ever-present reservoir of pagan myths, legends, and folk music of the region. Their sensitivity to the sonic environment allows these composers to explore the liminal space dividing yet connecting landscape, soundscape, and mindscape.

More than mere musical "representations" of the striking natural landscapes of the North, each work, in it's own way, attempts to transform the natural world into a sonic landscape, a mindscape, into imaginary geographies. More than simply pastoral nostalgia, these sonic meditations on nature reach beyond the physical to the spiritual, probing the limit dividing the objective and subjective. Whether it is vast cosmic space or the intimate, interiority of the expressive voice, these works harness the power of music to probe the emotional contours of the tension between world and mind.

Haunted by landscapes colored by memory, fantasy, dreams, decay and infused with emotion, this music shifts consciousness through a transformational synthesis of landscape, soundscape, and mindscape - a shift from imaginary soundscapes to soundscapes of the imagination. In the hands of Lithuanian pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute, Northscapes is a sonic Aurora Borealis, Northern Lights of the ear and mind. -- Christopher Zimmerman

REVIEWS:

A superb recital disc from a quite exceptionally talented pianist…I was consistently won over by the fabulous talents of Jokubaviciute. The representative of her agency described her in an email introducing this recording as “one hell of a pianist”. For once, such a comment is an understatement!

-- MusicWeb International

This fascinating, unusual and at times enthralling selection is performed with a great balance of precision, understanding and respect. Importantly for a program in which textural considerations are central, Northscapes is beautifully recorded with warmth, plenty of space and no brassiness in the upper registers.

-- Limelight

It is a fascinating, well-balanced programme, played with engrossingly undemonstrative virtuosity…Jokubaviciute navigates the contrasting demands of each work with hugely impressive skill and Sono Luminus’s sound is superb. This is an enthralling programme from the northern world that no listener wary of contemporary music need be fearful of (Vasks’s nostalgically evocative score, for instance), though demands are sometimes made of their ears. Recommended.

-- Gramophone

Cellist Sophie Shao is a winner of the Avery Fisher Career Grant. She has been described by The New York Times as "eloquent and powerful." This is a beautiful program of great works from the past and the present, from Couperin to Chopin to Adès.