Modern Chamber Music is how flutist LIENE SEJANE and guitarist KRISTAPS GRASIS have described their music for a number of years, now. What is modern contemporary music? Not necessarily an absence of harmony or form. It can be pleasing to the ear, and yet eat the same timemodern.
This is music composed for different chamber ensembles, it is performed as a duo or together with larger ensembles – not the ensembles of bygone days but modern ensembles that play the instruments of our day, instruments that are also typical for jazz or rock music. In modern chamber music, classic forms meet with contemporary interpretations.
Liene & Kristaps have toured Europe for the past years, presenting their view on contemporary music. The succes of this gathered their belief that this style of music should be continued and developed further. They have recorded several albums on their own, as well with other artists, like the popular Latvian poet Juris Kronbergs with whom they appeared in a preformance of his poem "One-Eyed Wolf" to the music of Kristaps Grasis.
Liene and Kristaps have gathered around them musicians from different generations and different musical backgrounds. Together they play even well known compositions in a new exiting sound.

The theme of L&K’s previous album, PARALLELS (2004), was dances.
The central theme of the new album is images – images that have inspired the composers, images that are called to the mind’s eye of the listener during a performance, images that bring the listener to identify with new sounds. Every piece is intended as a soundscape in the world of imagination, where sounds inspire the listener to paint a picture in his own mind.
In ELVES’ SONG and DANCE IN THE HILLS, Liene Sejane toys with a slightly mystical, somewhat primeval approach, using early instruments such as the Scandinavian overtone flute. At the same time, she does not avoid contemporary rhythms, including modern jazz improvisations.
In IMAGES she uses complex polyrythms with changes in tempos and moods, allowing the listener to conjure up his or her own colours and motives.
The album’s central piece is Kristaps Grasis’ TRAVELLER’S SUITE, written over a period of two years, illustrating the constant to and fro of the two musicians’ life in two countries. The piece has five parts: three main parts and two interludes.
The first part, THE CITY, recreates the pace of today’s urban lifestyle – the rapid pulse of the city, the sounds and the sights, the excitement and the attraction. The second part (the first interlude), PROMENADE, creates a lull in the busy life of the city, a moment of respite before the pace picks up again.
The third part is THE AIRPORT – the hub, the middle point between the musicians’ two homes and, at the same time, the gateway to the world.
The fourth part (the second interlude), TRAINRIDE, is a rhythmic variation of the third part. The emotions are similar, but they are now stiller – earthbound, homebound.
The fifth part, BY THE SEA, recalls all of the previous emotions, but also documents the shifting nature of the sea, the fascination that makes one return – again and again.