Uriel (2006) for computer, digital flute samples, and electronic sound. Referring to this last electronic composition from the Music of Cosmic Models cycle, the composer says that “it is based on a 12 x 12 magic square and digital flute samples; since it, among others things, includes processing in real time as well, the work is technically rather demanding”. This composition was produced in the composer’s private studio, where the sound of Cveto Kobal’s flute was recorded. It was premiered at the composer’s concert in Ljubljana the very year it was written.
Fire Music (1988) for computer and electronic studio was produced in the Belgrade Electronic Studio, being the third work of the extensive algorithmic cycle Music of Cosmic Models.
According to the composer, the musical material had its origin in the intriguing coding of a game of chess between Robert James Fischer and Bent Larsen (at the tournament in 1958) with the help of a 5 x 5 magic square that symbolizes the planet Mars. Similar to other compositions of this cycle, the just-mentioned method was more of an incentive for creative imagination than a leading principle. Its music develops an expressive arc, from a restlessly concealed and cynical beginning to a thrillingly tense ending.
The work was premiered at the 15th Zagreb Biennial as part of celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of electronic music, in 1989, and the very same year it was on the program of the 19th Syntheses ’89 festival in Bourges, France.
Sunset (1990) for natural female voice and electronic (virtual) instruments was written as a kind of incidental music to Šijanec’s videochoreo-project of the same title, at the same time being the central part of a ballet with the same name. It was performed for the first time on RTV Serbia, immediately followed by a performance at the Coreografo electronico festival in Naples in 1993. There is also a Serbian folk song embedded in its original form, sung by Svetlana Stevic whose recording the composer heard for the first time, and obtained, on Radio Belgrade. The folk singer fascinated him by the purity and naturalness of her voice.
The minimalistic and calm beginning becomes ever more dramatic, only to fade away and gradually vanish in silence. Apart from Šijanec’s Parallel Worlds this is his most frequently performed work.
Lumina (2007) for mistuned zither, digital viola samples, string quartet, and electronic sound, a product of the composer’s studio in which, in his own words, “On the basis of recorded sounds generated through the ‘Reactor’ computer program and processed by the ‘Nuendo’ program, virtual instruments create an acoustic moment on the Ljubljana Moor”. The work is a result of visions of sound that affected him on his walks through the awakening nature of the marshy land near his home. Or, as he himself says, “The eyes are those which perceive the shimmer of light and shadow, the illusion of reflections, of what is above and what is below, the pulse of sonorous colors”.
Parallel Worlds (1986) for piano and electronic studio in cooperation with the multimedia artist and painter Gordana Novakovic. Having the synergy of the visual (her exhibits) and the sonorous as the foundation of this project, the composition was a result of a sudden inspiration, i.e. of the composer’s one-night improvising on the “electronic studio” in Radio Belgrade. Here and there, a lyrically enraptured atmosphere is joined by echoes of universal infinity.