Alexandre Lunsqui (b.1969)
Deflectere II (2008)

Alexandre Lunsqui was born in São Paulo, Brazil. After ten years based in New York City, he returned to Brazil as Professor of Composition and Theory at the Universidade Estadual Paulista, UNESP. He studied at the University of Campinas (BM), University of Iowa (MA), Columbia University (DMA), and for a year at IRCAM for composition and computer music. Lunsqui has studied with Tristan Murail, Jose Augusto Mannis, Fred Lerdahl, and Jeremy Dale-Roberts.

Lunsqui’s music has been performed throughout the United States and abroad by ensembles including the Arditti String Quartet, Ensemble Dal Niente, Third Coast Percussion, and the International Contemporary Ensemble, and orchestras including the Orquestra de Câmera da Universidade de São Paulo, Lucerne Academy Alumni, and the New York Philharmonic.  

In 2016, Lunsqui was awarded a Koussevitzky Commission, a Commande d'Etat by the French Ministry of Culture, and the ProAC award by the Secretaria do Estado da Cultura from Sao Paulo. These three new works are part of Lunsqui’s Telluris cycle.

Deflectere is a latin word meaning bend aside, turn away, divert. I composed the first sketches of this piece as a study on moving objects, more specifically, on a beam of light. I pictured the musicians as scientists conducting experiments with the sounds that they produce. Except here sounds are acting like beams of light. The initial sound of the violin is the material/object that becomes constantly transformed by various actions. Clarinet and percussion join the violin not only as mirrors, but also as colliders, generating new colors, new velocities, and new structures. The music is, therefore, a sonic description of these experiments.

—Alexandre Lunsqui