Rafet Rudi — Petite Suite Pour Guitare

Rafet Rudi is a composer and conductor from Mitrovica, Kosovo. This short suite for guitar is the only known work Rudi has composed for the instrument, consisting of five short, contrasting movements, which are played together continuously. I programmed this piece on my recital immediately following Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks’ Sonata of Loneliness as I felt the two works shared certain similarities in aesthetic, harmonic language and sense of expressivity on the instrument. I think it is interesting to consider the expanse of music from composers in different regions of Europe whose unique stylistic and musical voices can be easily overlooked by the homogeneous wealth of traditional canonized repertoire representative of European classical music, that has historically been curated mostly from the work of certain Western European composers.