Between Past and Present

Contemporary Music Festival “Music of Changes”

Ensemble „Paleasis“:

Vytenis Gurstis (flute), Ugnius Dičiūnas (oboe), Karolis Kolakauskas (clarinet), Andrius Puplauskis (bassoon), Gediminas Abaris (horn), Kristijonas Pūtys (violin), Tomas Savickas (viola), Marius Dominykas Sakavičius (cello), Dainius Rudvalis (double bass)

Artistic Director, Soloist, and Conductor: Alexander Paley (piano, USA–Lithuania)

Soloist: Pei-Wen Chen (piano, USA)

Ensemble Guest: Deimena Petkauskaitė (violin)

Programme: Jeronimas Kačinskas, Stasys Vainiūnas, Onutė Narbutaitė, Béla Bartók

The Contemporary Music Festival “Music of Changes” invites you once again to embrace change and new experiences! Now in its 20th year, the festival presents the finest examples of 20th and 21st-century music that have influenced changes in music history, as well as the most modern forms of expression, and introduces interactions between various art forms. The festival’s program, which covers a broad context of contemporary culture, offers a rich variety of internationally significant projects, encouraging exploration of intriguing contemporary art territories and experiencing the joy of discovery.

The program will feature music by renowned Lithuanian composers associated with Klaipėda. This includes the Nonet by Jeronimas Kačinskas, one of the most important modernists of interwar Lithuania, a graduate and teacher at the Klaipėda Music School, and founder of the Symphony Orchestra. In this work, he realized his visionary ideas of microtonal music. The program will also include works for piano and chamber ensemble by Stasys Vainiūnas, a Lithuanian music classic of the mid-20th century who taught in Klaipėda, and Onutė Narbutaitė, one of the most prominent contemporary Lithuanian composers.

The program is prepared by the ensemble “Paleasis,” formed by the renowned pianist Alexander Paley, featuring distinguished Lithuanian wind and string instrument virtuosos. The world-renowned pianist, who resides in Lithuania, increasingly focuses on Lithuanian composers in his repertoire, and this program, consisting entirely of Lithuanian composers’ music, is the ensemble’s first of its kind. Symbolically, Alexander Paley and his ensemble have prepared a program dedicated to composers connected to the port city of Klaipėda for their many fans in the city.