The fourth annual new music festival “Music of Changes” will soon open the fifth concert season of the Klaipėda Concert Hall. The main programme of the festival will take place from 18 September to 17 October, and the special concerts pre scriptum (on 12 September) and post scriptum (on 7 November) will embellish the whole celebration.
Projects combining contemporary music with other arts predominate in this year‘s festival. Acoustic and electronic sounds will merge with video, theatre, dance, performance art, and even circus numbers.
On the other hand, “Music of Changes” continues its mission to present the public with music by most prominent composers of 20st century, who have significantly affected the music evolution, i.e. the Changes. Olivier Messiaen and Karlheinz Stockhausen are on the festival‘s focus this year. Lithuanian music will be represented by works of Onutė Narbutaitė and Vidmantas Bartulis - both of them are laureate of the National Prize, the highest distinction in culture and arts in Lithuania.
Pre scriptum: Air Foam
“Air Foam”/ “L‘Ecume de l‘air” (Les Apostrophés, France) is described as “an acoustic concert for double bass and juggling balls. This is an imaginable conversation between the musician and the juggler, something that reminds us the archaic connection between movement and sound. In all simplicity, two virtuosos in their field invite you to a trip of complicity”, states the author of the idea, juggler Martin Schwietzke. He will sprinkle the “Air Foam” together with Michel Bismut, the composer and double bass player.
Partners of the project - French Cultural Centre and Arts Printing House.
The Last Supper of Vidmantas Bartulis
Chamber opera “Pas de deux” (“The Last Supper”) by Vidmantas Bartulis will start the main part of the festival‘s programme. According to the author, “it is mostly a royalist opera, embellished with revolutionary and culinary shades, composed for two actors, twelve musicians, conductor and cook. The action takes place in the times of the Great French Revolution.”
The actors Audronė Paškonytė and Evaldas Jaras will appear in the roles of Marie Antoinette of Austria and Louis XVI of France. The composer himself 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. The public will have interesting things to watch, hear and even taste...
Breathing Music
It is the title of the piece by Justė Janulytė. It will be presented in the lobby of the concert hall, decorated with air sculptures by Dovydas Klimavičius; members of the Chordos String Quartet will play inside of them. Breathing sculptures, pulsations of light and sound, periodic movements of the musicians will create a hypnotic atmosphere, and the public will have the possibility to explore different watching and listening angles. The second part of the concert (Henri Dutilleux, György Ligeti, John Zorn) will breathe with most unexpected emotions.
A Concert in Compact Discs
Or according to its presenters - “Concerto in CD”. The concert will be performed by the youngest Lithuanian orchestra so far, founded a year ago - the “Diissc Orchestra”. It is unique for the fact that real members of the orchestra are 8 CD players. With their help, the 4 composers - Antanas Kučinskas, Vytautas V. Jurgutis, Martynas Bialobžeskis, Jonas Jurkūnas - will perform electroacoustic compositions by themselves and other Lithuanian composers, as well as by Karlheinz Stockhausen.
Songs of Sky and Earth
The title of this concert was prompted by the composition of Olivier Messiaen, and the concert is dedicated to his centenary. Besides Messiaen, the programme will feature the works by J. Mark Scearce, Algirdas Martinaitis and Luciano Berio, which were inspired by Messiaen‘s ideas. They will be performed by Skaidra Jančaitė (soprano), Birutė Vainiūnaitė (piano) and the Ensemble 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 tempting part of the time lost is the night. This performance of sound and sight, woven out of nightly sounds, timbres and shades, should evoke a feeling of “time stopped for a while”.
Duo Strimaitis, the authors of this concert‘s idea, tells that they got the inspiration from George Crumb‘s “Night Music II”. In this concert they will also perform works by Olivier Messiaen, Arvo Pärt, Giedrė Pauliukevičiūtė-Dabulskienė, and John Cage. The music will be accompanied by Artūras Bukauskas‘ video installations which will immerse the listeners into the feelings of silence, serenity and harmony.
Left In Order Not To See
The Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra, which participates in the festival every year, presents the programme titled after the work by the Georgian composer Giya Kancheli. This composition for viola (soloist - Arūnas Statkus) and orchestra is distinguished by existential themes and deep emotionality; here even the rests seem to speak with special eloquence.
A strong contrast is the vivacious, almost Baroque-style Concerto for String Orchestra by the Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. The Symphony for Strings by the Estonian composer Lepo Sumera attests to his mastery of large-scale forms and orchestral writing.
Theatrical gestures will mark the performance of “Suite of Verbs” by Feliksas Bajoras and “Artizarra” by Algirdas Martinaitis. The conductor Vytautas Lukočius will also play harpsichord and piano.
Post scriptum: Sound Journey
This concert of the Ensemble für intuitive Musik Weimar, presented together with the Goethe-Institut Vilnius and the Gaida Festival, is dedicated to the 80th anniversary of birth of Karlheinz Stockhausen.
The ensemble was founded to explore the intuitive music scores by Karlheinz Stockhausen. The ensemble members are Matthias von Hintzenstern (cello), Hans Tutschku (synthesizer, electronics), Daniel Hoffmann (trumpet, flugelhorn), Michael von Hintzenstern (piano, synthesizer). Another important “member” is a computer with mobile sound studio inside, for multi-channel sound spatialization.
Video Clubs
Video club “Audiovisual compositions by AlvaNoto (Carsten Nicolai)”, presented by the composer Vytautas V. Jurgutis, is addressed to devotees of electronic music. Electronic sound and visual art for this German artist is like an instrument for controlling the microscopic creative process.
Video club “Onutė Narbutaitė‘s musical texts and contexts” invites to meet the composer who states that “we would be nothing without all inspirations that we get from our environment - history, art, people around us. And the most exciting thing is to find out that somebody was inspired by your music as well.”
Klaipėda Concert Hall inf.
