Artist, composer, musician and performer, Lina Lapelyte says of her practice, ‘it can be placed ‘in-between’; in-between classical and experimental, music and fine art, composing and improvising.’ Initially trained as a classical violinist in Lithuania Lina showed an interest in experimental music from early on. Her experience playing with the likes of David Toop, John Butcher and Anton Lukoszevieze within the London improvised music scene in 2006 radically changed her way of composing, her pieces becoming frameworks for improvisations rather than finished compositions. Questioning the importance of musical training became another strand in her work leading her to incorporate untrained performers in unorthodox ways. Her opera Have a Good Day! which examined issues of displacement, otherness and beauty through piano, electronics and text involved using actual cashiers from local supermarkets for the vocal strand of the piece.
Provocative, original and at times witty, her latest work Candy Shop in which she performs, reworks the games of power embedded in rap songs, making them into lullabies while narrating a story about beauty, gender and the mundane. The piece has been highly praised and was performed at The New Experimentalists night at the QEH in January 2014 which celebrated the four shorlisted musicians. The line up featured Lina and musicians Nouria Bah, Anat Ben David, Angharad Davies, Sharron Gal, Heidi Heidelberg and Rebecca La Horrox.
‘Lina is working right at the edge of what popular music could become.’ Brian Eno