Acumal was commissioned by Zagreb Guitar Trio (Darko Petrinjak, Istvan Roemer, Goran Listes) in 2020 who was supposed to give a premiere of the piece in the same year. Unfortunately, as Goran Listes suddenly passed away, it wasn't anymore possible. Continuing the tradition of Croatian guitar trio playing, Trio Elogio (Petrit Ceku, Pedro Ribeiro Rodrigues, Tomislav Vuksic) got interested in the piece and included it in its repertoire. With mixed feelings, fate and unusual paths of the Music, I am happy that Acumal received a successful premiere on Novemeber 11th 2022 at the 59th contemporary music festival in Osijek (Croatia) by these three fantastic virtuosi, after two years since it has been written. As my first work written exclusively for guitar, it has opened to me some new horizons of understanding and possibilities of writing for the plucked instrument in general. Beside, in this piece I have explored the fields of minimalist expression which started to occupy my interest in the last years, as well as the acoustic phenomena of three identical instruments. Therefore the title which combines the words "acoustic" and "minimal". In ideal circumstances, the musicians should be placed on three different spots at the concert hall, so the audience could perceive the sound from different angles, thus the seating position would change the experience of the music material. Each guitar should be the sound source for itself, making a connection with its "own" part of the audience, occasionally communicating with other two guitars, and sometimes not, creating in such way some interesting sound landscapes. Something like human (co)existence which can be - but not necessarily, related to the collective; or parallel realities that can overlap, pass each other or diverge. Crafted as a triptych (Energico - Languido - Nobile), each of three movements is based on its characteristic motif, while in the canon-like final movement the two themes from earlier movements re-appear, intertwining in a triple vortex. I express my special thanks to professor Darko Petrinjak on his advices and help on writing for guitar.

Bruno Vlahek, October 2022