XXVII Pažaislis Music Festival
For the twenty-seventh time, the Pažaislis Music Festival welcomes its listeners. With a wholehearted belief and dream for world peace, the organisers of the festival invite you to spend summer time with wonderful music. Music helps us to dream, so the programme of the 27th Pažaislis Music Festival will include dreamed-of artists, the most current works of creators, performances by stars of the music world, new names and debuts.
The beginning of Lithuania’s largest classical music festival and musical summer will be symbolically announced by the most beautiful fragments of the legendary opera Porgy and Bess by American composer George Gershwin, and the festival will be crowned by excerpts from one of the world’s most frequently staged operas – Georges Bizet’s Carmen.
New projects will be presented by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra, a special concert featuring two monumental works by Lithuanian composer B. Kutavičius: oratorios “The Last Rites of the Pagans” and “Epitaph for the Passing Time” will be performed to remember this extraordinary artist who left us last year. Oslo Philharmonic Choir will perform a programme dedicated to the Year of the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, and a magnificent work – “Requiem” by Czech composer Antonín Dvořák – will be performed to remember the Mourning and Hope Day.
The 27th Pažaislis Music Festival, as part of the Kaunas – European Capital of Culture 2022 programme, will present two exceptional projects: “Kirana”, an opera for children by the Maltese composer Ruben Zahra, and the programme “World Music Stars in Pažaislis”, where, in collaboration with Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra and Kaunas State Choir, the world-famous Ukrainian conductor Oksana Lyniv will perform a programme devoted to her homeland, together with her compatriots – the baritone Andrei Bondarenko and the violinist Andrii Murza. The concert will focus on the music of Ukrainian composers alongside well-known classical works. All proceeds from the tickets sold for this concert will go to support Ukrainians affected by the war.
The famous pianist Mūza Rubackytė, who is a welcome guest at the festival every year, together with the renowned violinist Dmitri Makhtin (the Netherlands) will invite the audience to listen to the gems of chamber music from the Romantic epoque. The Pažaislis audience will be the first to hear the official debut concert of the ensemble Paleasis, formed by the charismatic pianist Alexander Paley. The duo of German lyric baritone Benjamin Appl, whose mastery has been described by critics as “unbearably moving”, and British pianist Simon Lepper, described by BBC Music Magazine as a “sensational discovery”, will invite the audience to immerse themselves in a romantic programme entitled “Give me the life I love”. The charismatic pianist Petras Geniušas will share with the audience the treasures he has discovered in the repositories of his memory – the concert will feature improvisations by the artist alongside works by other composers.
The festival audience will have a unique opportunity to get to know the Huelgas Ensemble (Belgium), a fifty-year-old early music ensemble renowned throughout the world for its inventive programmes and innovative approach to early repertoire. And on 21 July, traditional Mexican rhythms, combined with a variety of musical contexts, will be woven into the strings of the sultry guitar and the sensual violin, played by members of Flor de Toloache, one of the finest women’s mariachi bands on the planet.
On 21 August, the instrument of Miloš Karadaglić, born in Montenegro and hailed as the world’s hottest guitarist and a true superstar, will resound with the sounds of classical music. The interdisciplinary arts and piano recital project by pianist Tricia Dawn Williams (Malta) will combine contemporary technology, video art, electronic music and different piano techniques.
More and more attention is being paid to the debuts of young artists, so this year the audience will have the opportunity to meet Duo Mirage and XYLOS Duo, and Trio Agora will invite you to a joint concert with members of the National Student Academy.
The festival prepares quality music projects for young listeners also. On 19 June, in the newly discovered, beautiful Tadas Ivanauskas Obelynė homestead, you will probably meet a kangaroo, an elephant or some other animal as they will come to life in the homestead’s cosy gardens in the theatrical concert for the whole family Maestro Gives a/no Show.
The 27th Pažaislis Music Festival, glowing with colourful programmes, invites all those who are eager to explore, dream, believe, and who are constantly searching for the natural sound of live music, unforgettable impressions and new experiences. The organisers sincerely believe that each concert of the festival will attract a large number of listeners, that the perfect summer weather and festive mood will accompany each project of the festival, and that all those who visit the festival will experience that unique feeling of the joy of knowledge. See you at the concerts of the 27th Pažaislis Music Festival!
