With one Breath

Lithuanian pianist Akvilė Šileikaitė, an alumna of the Stasys Šimkus Conservatory in Klaipėda, and French saxophonist Valentine Michaud met each other seven years ago, while studying at the Zurich University of the Arts, in Switzerland. They soon formed the Akmi Duo and won several important prizes as an ensemble. The duo regularly appears on stages both in Switzerland and abroad and has been invited to perform at numerous music festivals and events in Europe, including the KKL Lucerne, Wigmore Hall, Musikverein Wien, Festival Radio France, Lucerne Festival, Label Suisse Festival, the Swiss Chamber Music Festival in Adelboden, Festival autour d’un piano and Zurich International Saxfest. Both musicians are truly passionate about modern and contemporary music, performing with undisguised joy. They have built up a repertoire that is wide and varied, encompassing everything from sonatas to tango, by composers from countries as diverse as Lithuania and the USA.

The programme “With one Breath” gives but a glimpse into their varied repertoire and reveals their goal to unite different sides of their personalities through music, performed as if they were breathing as one. It encompasses some original pieces for saxophone and piano composed by young Swiss composer Kevin Juillerat and French composer Raphaël Sévère, written especially for the ensemble, as well as sonatas for alto saxophone and piano by Edison Denisov and William Albright, tinged with the diverse influences coming from Bach and jazz, which represent the second half of the 20^th century as the period’s most significant works for saxophone and piano. The programme will also feature Raminta Šerkšnytė’s Ballad for piano (1998) as well as the arrangements of popular works by Maurice Ravel and Paul Hindemith for soprano / alto saxophone and piano.

• 50% off for schoolchildren, students, senior citizens and people with disabilities (appropriate cards to be shown);

• 50% off for children under 7 years of age (admitted only to the educational programmes);

• Admission free for persons in wheelchairs (appropriate cards to be shown ) and 50% off for one accompanying person;

• 10% off for group bookings (20 and more tickets for one event);

• 100% off for schoolchildren and students of the Klaipėda art schools (appropriate ID cards to be shown), which include: Klaipėda Stasys Šimkus Conservatory, Klaipėda Juozas Karosas Music School, Klaipėda Eduardas Balsys Gymnasium of Arts, Klaipėda Jeronimas Kačinskas Music School, Klaipėda Faculty of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Klaipėda Adomas Brakas School of Art. A transaction fee of € 1.20 is applied when purchasing tickets via the BILIETAI ticketing system.