The audience this evening will have a unique opportunity to hear music that has become important not only in this composer’s work but also as part of the entire contemporary classical canon. The unique concert will feature the Vilnius City Ensemble NIKO with orchestra and conductor Gediminas Gelgotas performing the works of the legendary creator.
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Last year, the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, who celebrated his honorable 90th birthday, is one of the most significant contemporary authors in the world. Alongside creators such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, and John Adams, he is considered one of the most important figures in contemporary music. The famous minimalist S. Reich said about his colleague’s phenomenal music: “He does not at all conform to the fashions of the time, and yet he is extraordinarily popular.”
Arvo Pärt gained worldwide fame with his unique “tintinnabuli” style (Latin tintinnabulum – bell). In “tintinnabuli” music, the highly concentrated material expresses the composer’s special relationship with silence, and the style itself reveals the creator’s philosophy, closely connected with Christian values, religious practice, and the search for truth, beauty, and purity.
Arvo Pärt was led into this distinctive musical world by long previous creative searches. After his studies, he was one of the first in Estonia to adopt the most modern composition techniques of the time – neoclassicism, dodecaphony, serialism, sonorism, aleatoricism, and collage principles. Although these works received high praise, none of these directions attracted the composer for long. However, even then, features appeared in Arvo Pärt’s music that later became the basis of the “tintinnabuli” style – powerful dramaturgy, concentrated musical material, developed form, and the sacredness of sound.
In the seventies, the composer turned to early music – delving into Gregorian chant, the Notre Dame school’s polyphony, and Renaissance music. The result of these studies was the “tintinnabuli” style born in 1976, first heard in the short piano piece “Für Alina,” and soon after in works such as “Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten,” “Fratres,” “Tabula rasa,” and “Spiegel im Spiegel.”
A turning point in the career of the composer who created a unique musical language was the 1984 album “Tabula Rasa” released by the ECM Records label, after which Arvo Pärt’s music spread to the world’s largest concert halls, festivals, and recording catalogs. Today, his works are commissioned by the most prestigious orchestras and music institutions, and his music is constantly heard on the world’s most significant stages. For example, in 2015, the Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned him to compose “Greater Antiphons,” which premiered that same year performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra led by the famous Gustavo Dudamel.
The concert will feature legendary Arvo Pärt works – the elegiac and hypnotic “Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten,” the peace prayer called “Da Pacem Domine,” the ascetic clarity of “Summa,” one of the most frequently performed compositions “Fratres,” the world-famous “Tabula rasa,” and one of the most significant late-period works “Trisagion.”
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The most famous Arvo Pärt works in this concert will be performed by the Vilnius City Ensemble NIKO – one of Lithuania’s brightest ensembles, internationally recognized for original and visual performances. The musicians play from memory and combine the highest level of string mastery with subtle visual solutions.
Constantly awaited by Lithuanian and foreign audiences, the ensemble has performed in prestigious halls such as New York’s Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, London’s St Martin-in-the-Fields and Roundhouse, Zurich’s Tonhalle, and Aix’s Grand Théâtre de Provence.
NIKO has also played during the visits of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis to Lithuania and has performed for Queen Sonja of Norway, collaborating with many internationally acclaimed performers – Kristjan Järvi, David Geringas, Mari Samuelsen, David Nebel, Peter Gregson, Ksenija Sidorova, Francesco Tristano.
NIKO was founded in 2006 by composer and conductor Gediminas Gelgotas, whose own music is performed in prestigious European halls and festivals.
Concert of music legend Arvo Pärt’s most famous works – October 18 at the LVSO concert hall with the Vilnius City Ensemble NIKO and orchestra, conductor Gediminas Gelgotas. Tickets are sold by “Bilietai.lt”.
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