International Federation for Choral Music

As part of the WSCM tradition, six WSCM 2026 invited choirs will be paired with six commissioned composers, culminating in world premieres at their gala concerts at the Macau Cultural Centre. Reflecting the symposium’s theme, each choir will perform a newly created work by a composer from a different country, creating a dynamic space for cultural exchange and musical dialogue.

Monika Sokaitė (Lithuania)

Monika Sokaitė is a contemporary music composer whose work encompasses instrumental, choral, and interdisciplinary music. Her music has been performed in Lithuania and across Europe by distinguished conductors, soloists, ensembles, choirs, and orchestras. Alongside her compositional activity, Monika is also active as a music critic and publicist. Feminist ideas occupy an important place in her artistic outlook, with her work often addressing questions of identity, corporeality, and women’s visibility within contemporary music culture.

"Her musical language is jouissance crystallised into form: fetishistic aureoles as canon, Dantean harmony, and a persistent tension between technical restraint and an obsessive pursuit of text. A miniature for voice and piano or a celestial, architectural strike in the name of the Marquis de Sade – it makes no difference. The structure is the same: a self-perpetuating loop of desire. This loop turns within the sacred acoustics of the choir.” — NIM

Monika Sokaitė’s note on La Divina Commedia. Paradiso. Canto I (based on Dante Alighieri)

Inspired by the opening lines of Dante’s Paradiso, the work explores light as a metaphor for human perception and the imagining of future realities beyond present understanding. Layered choral textures and fragmented imitation create a shifting acoustic space, recalling Dante’s vision of light diffused throughout the universe. As the music unfolds, increasing density and rhythmic energy suggest an ascent beyond human limitations. The concept of trasumanar, transcending the human, gradually transforms the text from semantic meaning into sound, gesture, and pure sonic experience. Here, the future is understood not as prediction, but as transformation: a shift in consciousness through which new worlds become imaginable.