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Lithuanian music has a tireless and devoted promoter in the noted German guitar player, professor of the Musikhochschule Münster, Reinbert Evers. His long-standing relationship and collaboration with a number of Lithuanian composers have yielded not only numerous national and international performances (not limited to guitar-related repertory), but also in nearly a dozen of new pieces, of which he is often a dedicatee and first performer. Three concerts, taking place this October-November in Münster and devoted exclusively to Lithuanian music, will surely add to his long list of merits.
First among these will be the portrait concert of Onutė Narbutaitė at Akademie Franz Hitze Haus on Oct. 8. Entitled "Seasons of the Year", it will include four Narbutaitė's chamber works corresponding to the seasons of the year: June Music 1991, Mozartsommer, Winterserenade and Autumn Ritornelo. Homage à Fryderyk. This event is included in the regular series of portrait concerts "Mit eigener Stimme", organised in collaboration with the Gesellschaft für Neue Musik Münster.
Another Lithuanian composer, whose music is often included in Evers' concert programmes, is Bronius Kutavičius. His monumental Gates of Jerusalem will be featured during the Münster-based KlangZeit festival on Nov. 7 (performed by tenor Georg Poplutz, Westfälischer Kammerchor and St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra, under Donatas Katkus). In this four-movement cycle for tenor, mixed choir and orchestra, Kutavičius ingeniously conducts the seventy-minute long musical narrative, which evokes the religious rites from different parts and archaic cultures of the world. Such a concept neatly falls under the theme of this year's festival - "Erzählende Musik - Musiktheater".
The series of events in Münster, involving Lithuanian music and musicians, will conclude with a concert at the Musikhochschule on Nov. 18, which will feature Osvaldas Balakauskas' Impresonata, Vytautas Barkauskas' Mirror and Jurgis Juozapaitis' Aphrodite, performed by flutist Valentinas Gelgotas and pianist Povilas Stravinskas.
Lithuanian Music Link No. 9
