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Contemporary Music Festival “Music of Changes” 2008

 “Music of Changes”: Let Us Open Our Hearts to Changes and New Impressions!

The beginning of the fifth concert season of concert hall of Klaipėda city will soon be declared by the fourth music festival “Music of Changes”. The main programme will take place from the 18th of September to the 17th of October and the concerts pre scriptum (on the 12th of September) and post scriptum (on the 7th of November) will embellish the celebration.
Projects combining the contemporary music with other trends in art predominate in the present festival. Unexpected combinations widening art perception and causing new impressions are guaranteed. The concerts will bring you new life, acoustic and electronic sounds will merge with spectacle, motion, theatre, ballet, circus, and performance elements.
On the other hand, “Music of Changes” continues its mission to acquaint people with most prominent Lithuanian and foreign masters who affected the evolution of the history i.e. the changes. This time the major attention is being devoted to the works of the authors who are known all over the world such as the Frenchman Olivier Messiaen and the German Karlheinz Stockhausen. Onutė Narbutaitė and Vidmantas Bartulis, creators awarded with national Lithuanian prizes, who once wore the same stylistic shirt and were called “neoromantics”, will also come to the festival.
Ten festival events – 8 concerts and 2 video-clubs – are waiting for the most devoted and most curious admirers of contemporary music and art.

Pre scriptum: Air Foam
“Air Foam”/ "L’Ecume de le l’air" (Cie Les Apostrophés, France) is defined to be an acoustic concert for contrabass and beads. This is an imaginable conversation between the musician and the juggler, something that reminds us the connection of archaic motion with the sound. “In all simplicity, two instrumentalists invit you to a trip of complicity”, - states the author, juggler Martin Schwietzke. He will sow the “Air Foam” together with Michel Bismut, the composer and double bass player.
Project partners – French Cultural Centre and Menų spaustuvė.

The Last Supper of Vidmantas Bartulis
Chamber opera “Pas de deux” (“The Last Supper”) of Vidmantas Bartulis will start the main part of the programme of the festival. According to its author “it is mainly a royalist opera, embellished with revolutionary and culinary shades, created for two actors, twelve musicians, conductor and cook. The action takes place in the times of the Great French Revolution.”
Milda Arčikauskaitė will appear in the role of Marie Antoinette, and Evaldas Jaras in the role of Ludvik the XIth. The composer V.Bartulis will act as a cook, and Maestro Donatas Katkus will appear in the role of conductor. Jonas Arčikauskas is responsible for the direction and scenography. People will have interesting things to watch, hear and even taste...

Breathing Music
It is the title of the piece of Justė Janulytė. You will be able to hear the creation in the lobby of the concert hall, ornamented with air sculptures of Dovydas Klimavičius where string quartet “Chordos” will play. The hypnotic atmosphere will be created by breathing sculptures, light and sound beats, periodic movements of the musicians, and the public will have the possibility to try various watching and listening positions. The second part of the concert (Henri Dutilleux, Gyorgy Ligeti, John Zorn) will cause people most improbable emotions.

Concert in Compact Discs
Or according to its authors – “Concerto in CD”. The concert will be performed by the youngest Lithuanian orchestra that created itself only the last year i.e. “Diissc Orchestra”. The uniqueness of the thought is that the real bandsmen are 8 CD players. The 6 composers - Antanas Kučinskas, Antanas Jasenka, Vytautas V. Jurgutis, Martynas Bialobžeskis, Jonas Jurkūnas, Linas Rimša – will use the players for their and K.Stockhausen’s electro acoustic works created on purpose.

Songs of Sky and Earth
The title to this concert was given according to the creation of Olivier Messiaen and is dedicated to his centenary. The creation of this author reveals itself in space – it is especially original, able to resist the most important styles of the century and synthesizing Western and Eastern cultures. This creation is an alive articulation of eternal values.
The works of O.Messiaen, by his ideas inspired creations of J. Mark Scearce, Algirdas Martinaitis, and Luciano Berio will be fulfilled by Skaidra Jančaitė (soprano), Birutė Vainiūnaitė (piano) and the company “Musica Humana”: Algirdas Vizgirda (flute), Robertas Beinaris (oboe), Ričardas Vytas (alto), Raimundas Jasiukaitis (cello), Gediminas Kviklys (harpsichord), Saulius Astrauskas (percussion).

Night Music
Most magic and especially tempting part of the time lost is the night. This performance of music and spectacle, combined with night sounds, timbre and shades creates the feeling of the “time suspended”.
Duo Strimaitis, the creator of this concert programme, tells that the creation of George Crumb i.e. “Night Music II” inspired them to create the symbolic idea of “Night Music”. Various ways of getting different violin sounds, possibilities of percussion of piano are being used here.
The opus of Olivier Messiaeno, Arvo Pärto, Giedrė Pauliukevičiūtė-Dabulskienė and John Cage will also be performed. Spectacle instillations of Arturas Bukauskas will subordinate these creations and let the reader enjoy the silence, peace, belief, and soul harmony.

Left In Order Not To See
Existential theme, special spirituality and pureness of emotions mark the opus of Giya Kancheli, Georgian composer; the creation that annually takes place in the programme of Chamber Orchestra of Klaipėda city in the festival “Music of Changes”. Even pauses are important in the work created for alto solo (Arūnas Statkus) and orchestra.
The expressive concert for string orchestra of Grazyna Bacewicz, Polish composer, will be a contrast to this music. Symphony for strings and percussion of Lepo Sumera, Estonian composer, will also be performed. As far as this composer is apt to long contemplations and has a sensitive ear to symphonic sounds, symphony is a very suitable genre for him.
Theatrical gestures will mark the performance of “Suite of Verbs” of Feliksas Bajoras and “Artizara” of Algirdas Martinaitis. Vytautas Lukočius will conduct to the orchestra and also play the harpsichord and piano.

Post scriptum: Sound Journey
“Ensemble für Intuitive Musik Weimar” of guests from Germany presented together with Vilnius Goethe-Institut, festival “Note”, concert “Sound Journey” / “Klangreise” will commemorate the 80th birthday of Karlheinz Stockhausen.
K. Stockhauzen – is one of the symbols of XXth century, who from the very beginning was forward and fixed many substantial notions of contemporary music. This controversial personality was always loyal to himself – he never belonged to any style or trend of music, and he alone strived to understand the paths of contemporary music.
The scores of intuitive music of K. Stockhauzen encouraged the establishment of Leipzig Ensemble. Members of the emsemble are the following: Matthias von Hintzenstern (cello), Hans Tutschku (synthesizer, electronics), Daniel Hoffmann (trumpet, flugelhorn), Michael von Hintzenstern (piano, synthesizer). Computer, mobile studio, which throught the use of multichannel systems controls the flow of sound in space, is a very important component of the group too.

Video Clubs
Video club “AlvaNoto (Carsten Nicolai) Auto visual Creation” of the composer Vytautas V. Jurgutis is devoted to admirers of electronic music. Electronic sound and visual art for this German artist is like an instrument for controlling the microscopic creation process.
Video Club “Onutė Narbutaitė‘s musical texts and contexts” will invite us to meet the composer who states that “without the inspirations that we get from the surrounding atmosphere i.e. from history, art, surrounding people, we would be nothing. And what is the funniest thing is to find out that somebody was inspired by your music.”

“Music of Changes” together with the sounds of rain notes and wind passages invites: let us open our hearts to changes and new impressions! / Programme

KKS inf.