The Lithuanian Vladas Jakubėnas (1904–78) is one of a lost generation of Baltic composers. A student of Schreker in Berlin, he returned home to help build the musical culture of his country. The Nazi invasion and Soviet occupation drove him into exile and, after five years in refugee camps in Germany, he settled in Chicago, playing an impotant role in the Lithuanian diaspora in North America.

These eighteen choral songs show the deep identification of his late-Romantic style with the folk-music of the land he was forced to leave behind.

Vaclovas Augustinas (b.1959) graduated from the Department of Choir Conducting (1981) and the Department of Composition (1992) of the Lithuanian Academy of Music. Since 1992 has been conductor of Jauna Muzika. Some of his compositions have received prizes at national and international competitions and have been published by Alliance Music Publications and Laurendale Associates (USA). Vilnius City Municipal Choir Jauna Muzika was founded in 1989 by the conductor and composer Remigijus Merkelys and its long-lived director Algimantas Gurevičius. The choir received the highest award – Grand Prix Europeo – at the Grand Prix Winners Contest organised by the International Federation for Choral Music in Varna (Bulgaria) in 1993. Toccata Classics has also released a CD of Bronius Kutavičius’ oratorio The Seasons (TOCC 0200), which featured Jauna Muzika.