The cultural festival “Purple Evening” taking place in Anykščiai from August 13 to 15 will also feature Pijus Opera on its stage. The performer is preparing a rap performance for the festival, and he will also be the host of the main group day concert.
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“I will participate in the ‘Purple Evening’ festival for the first time, I will be a spectator, a listener, a performer, and a host,” laughs Pijus. “Sometimes I have to be a host, I feel that I like it. There are many events in the summer, another big concert is planned at the beginning of August in Vilnius, at the ‘Summer Terrace’.
The name Pijus Opera is becoming louder, but the performer avoids talking about career peaks. “I get scared every time I hear about the highest career rise. If we compare it with the past – maybe so. But I wouldn’t want that to be the end point. I hope that the current stage is the highest only until the next rise,” he says.
It seems that today many know Pijus Opera as one of the brightest masters of improvisation and rappers, but the creator himself primarily associates his world not with music, but with language.
“The Lithuanian language is a tool for me. The only way I can express myself – as a creator and a person. It is a territory where I manage to give meaning to myself in poems and songs. I could not do that in any other language,” he says.
The performer’s special relationship with language was born in childhood. Pijus’s mother graduated in Lithuanian philology, his grandmother worked as a Lithuanian language teacher, so the native word was always a value in his home.
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“I decided very early that I want to create only in Lithuanian. My parents sowed the value of the Lithuanian language in me, helped me discover its musicality. I remember, even at thirteen, I used to say that the Lithuanian language is very melodic,” he recalls.
Recently, his concerts have increasingly included not only improvisation but also poetry and explorations of other music genres. However, as he himself says, rap remains his territory, and genres connect.
“I always say that RAP stands for Rhythm and Poetry. If I had to choose between rhythm and poetry, I would choose poetry. Everything I have done in life was primarily about text, about language. And language also has its rhythm, so rhythm and text are inseparable,” insists the young generation performer, whom many concert and festival organizers want to see on their stages today.
Pijus Opera with the group will perform at the “Purple Evening” on the evening of August 15, the festival’s closing concert, which will also feature Aurimas Liudvinavičius, Gytis Ambrazevičius, Živilė Mackevičiūtė, the group “Baltos varnos,” Andrius Kaniava, Domantas Razauskas and Saulius Petreikis, “Kamanių šilelis,” the group from Ireland “Culchie,” Alina Orlova with Paulius Vaškeliu and Aidas Gecevičius, Viktoras Prapras with a live sound band. The Saulius Mykolaitis award will traditionally be presented at the concert, and it will be hosted by TV show host Ignas Krupavičius.
The cultural festival “Purple Evening” in Anykščiai – August 13–15. More information about the program here.
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