Aleksandar Perunović (1978, Montenegro) finished his BA and MA studies in composition at the Academy of Music in Cetinje in the class of Professor Žarko Mirković. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in composition at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, supervised by Professor Srđan Hofman. He has also attended several master classes in Serbia and abroad, led by Kurt Schwertsik, Detlev Müller-Siemens, Reinhard Febel, etc. His works have been performed in Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, Albania, Austria, Germany, Holland, and France, by various performers from Serbia, the region, and abroad: Leopolis Strings, ensemble on_line (Vienna), Sonemus, Collegium musicum women’s academic choir, etc. In addition to composition, he is also active in music theory and analysis and has presented work in this area at the international conference Muzička teorija i analiza (Music Theory and Analysis) in Belgrade, among others. Since 2003, he has been a fellow at the Academy of Music in Cetinje, teaching musical forms, counterpoint, and arranging; Perunović is also a member of the Department of Music at the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Metalglasswork is a sort of de(con)structivist ‘meta-variation’ set on a theme from Philip Glass’s Music Box (the opening number on the soundtrack of the film Candyman). In terms of thematic material, two main (and only) elements from Glass’s piece are varied: the melody – its opening motive (primarily in the concluding, slow section) and accompaniment – the opening arpeggiated C-minor triad (for the most part in the opening, likewise slow section). The music box – as a musical instrument – is alluded to precisely in these two sections. The opening section alludes to its spatiality/objectivity: the piano’s resonating box is amplified in a peculiar way (with certain non-standard performance techniques), representing a sort of sonoristic ‘variation’/allusion on/to the ‘theme’ of a musical box’s resonating body. Winding down, as a specific characteristic of that instrument, appears in two instances in the final section, whereas in the opening section even that element is ‘varied’ and therefore the tempo oscillates in both directions (accel., rit.). In the middle, fast section, the music box gradually gets ‘out of control’, while its dynamic motion and repetitiveness also generate a distant allusion to the poetics of the Philip Glass.