NEWS

As the Lithuanian winter gathers momentum, the Klaipėda Concert Hall begins the second half of the concert season with nine concerts, extending from the second half of January till the end of February. At these concerts we are going to meet both already familiar performers and ensembles and those who are going to visit our hall for the first time.

On January 17th, the “Midwinter Concert” will give us an opportunity to meet again the highly gifted piano duo of Vilija Poškutė and Tomas Daukantas. The Lithuanian pianists who currently reside in Switzerland have recently won two highest prizes at the Edvard Grieg Competition in Oslo. Retuning to Klaipėda for their second appearance, the ensemble will perform a selection of well-known works by Mozart, Grieg, Saint-Saëns and Liszt, as well as a piece by Antonio Robledo dedicated to the duo.

On January 19th, the Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra will present the second programme in collaboration with Darius Stabinskas – an excellent gambist and renowned expert of Baroque music. Last year Mindaugas Bačkus, the Orchestra’s artistic director and an accomplished cellist himself, has initiated the week-long master course and a concert dedicated to the authentic and historically informed performance of Baroque music, which turned out very rewarding both for the participants and listeners alike. This year they present a programme titled “Les éléments. French musical recipes in Europe of the 17th–18th centuries,” in which the orchestra and Darius Stabinskas appear together with flutist Vytautas Sriubikis.

“Soothe my soul,” sings tenor Edgaras Montvidas, who is going to introduce himself to the audience of the Klaipėda Concert Hall for the first time on January 25th. Having made London his second home ten years ago, he has made frequent appearances at the world’s greatest concert halls and opera houses, while back in Lithuania he collaborates with the Bohemiečiai Opera Company and appears in the productions of the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre.
For their concert in Klaipėda, Montvidas together with conductor Gintaras Rinkevičius prepared a splendid wreath of German and Spanish songs, operatic arias and orchestral numbers form popular ballets and operas. This programme marks the 24th anniversary of the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra.

On February 2nd the listeners will experience an exhilarating improv session by a protean duo of pianist Petras Geniušas and saxophonist Liudas Mockūnas. “What we both share is the so-called ‘School of Vilnius,’ with its characteristic mixture of anarchy and discipline,” the pianist comments. Both artists describe their project “The Sea in the Forest” as the polystylistic improvisation on well-known themes from M. K. Čiurlionis’s piano works, as well as from the pieces by Bronius Kutavičius, Feliksas Bajoras and Julius Andrejevas. The music of the mentioned composers is used as springboard for delving into the ‘sea’ of subjective musical impressions.

On February 10th pianist Alexander Paley and the Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra will present the 6th programme in the series “Mozart: Complete Piano Concerti.” For the third year in a row each concert in this series has become true musical discovery. Moreover, they have provided many opportunities to revel in the musicianship of the charismatic soloist and to marvel at their partnership growing stronger with each performance. This time we can expect to go even deeper into the unfathomable depths of the composer’s creation.

On February 15th the main stage of the Klaipėda Concert Hall will be clad with the “White Paths of Songs.” Tenor Algirdas Janutas, whose exceptional voice combines both beautiful timbre and dramatic spinto punch, and pianist Gražina Zalatorienė have prepared an all-Lithuanian programme dedicated to Lithuania’s Independence Day. Actress Gražina Urbonaitė will intervene into the mellifluous strains of music with poetic interludes. Among other poems, the verse by Justinas Marcinkevičius will sound as a meaningful commemoration of his first death anniversary.

A recital is not only a particularly challenging, but also a very intimate experience for a performer. Even more so, if the concert is to take place at the small chamber. On February 22nd, violinist Martynas Švėgžda von Bekker will perform “Solo Meditation” at the Ground Floor Foyer. At this concert the sounds of Baroque, Romantic music and Martynas’s own solo pieces are most likely to resonate with the subtlest vibrations of the soul’s strings.

An educational project “The Orchestra of Playful Music” was launched three years ago. On February 24th it will invite young fans and their families to the ninth programme, prepared by conductor Mindaugas Piečaitis in collaboration with the Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra and featuring a specially invited guest Michael Siefke (body percussion, Germany). What is most curious and fascinating about this project is that all participants will play on strange instruments and other non-musical objects, including their own bodies. You shall see how harmonious all these diverse means of sound production can be in the hands of resourceful performers and how inspiring musicianship can elicit loads of positive energy. This project is being organised in association with Goethe-Institut Vilnius.

The programme of February 29th is called “The Poet’s Love” after the famous song cycle by Robert Schumann, inspired by an overwhelming feeling. Performed by tenor Merūnas Vitulskis and pianist Justas Šervenikas on the last evening of winter, this and other works by Mikhail Glinka, Piotr Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rachmaninov will shroud you in the gossamer textures of Romantic songs and transport into the isles of long-forgotten memories…

Soothe your soul and listen…

KCH information
Written by Loreta Narvilaitė