World-renowned Baritone Thomas Hampson Sings of Conductor Gustav Mahler

Concert moved from June 12, 2020, June 4 and August 19, 2021. Tickets remain valid

Performers:
LITHUANIAN NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
(artistic director and principal conductor Modestas Pitrėnas)
Soloist and conductor THOMAS HAMPSON (baritone, USA)

Programme:

GUSTAV MAHLER
Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn, text by anonym):
Lob des hohen Verstands (In Praise of High Intellect)
Trost im Unglück (Consolation in Sorrow)
Der Schildwache Nachtlied (The Sentinel’s Nightsong)
Revelge (Reveille)

Blumine (Floral) from Symphony No. 1 in D major 

Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn, text by anonym):
Lied des Verfolgten im Turm (Song of the Persecuted in the Tower)
Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen (Where the Fair Trumpets Sound)
Das irdische Leben (The Earthly Life)
Das himmlische Leben (The Heavenly Life)
Urlicht (Primeval Light)

“His voice is the most beautiful baritone in the world, his hearth is adorned with a large collection of Grammy and Echo statuettes, he looks like a movie star!”, the famous Elbe Philharmonic in Hamburg praised the American baritone Thomas Hampson in 2016. One of today’s foremost singers was lauded by Metropolitan Opera Guild as the “Met Mastersinger”.

This year Thomas Hampson graces the Vilnius Festival stage. In his solo career, he has appeared in over 80 opera roles in opera theatres around the world and recorded over 170 albums that have been nominated for or earned prestigious awards such as the Grammy, Edison or Grand Prix du Disque. The American baritone complements his intensive concert activities with pedagogical work: he is an Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, an Honorary Doctor of the Manhattan School of Music, the Conservatories of New England and San Francisco, and Whitworth College of Liberal Arts, an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London as well as the artistic director of Heidelberg Lied Academy. Moreover, he shares his expertise each year in the Schubert Music Week at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin. His masterclasses are often followed by live broadcasts online via the academic music platform medici.tv, as well as the Manhattan School of Music and the Hampsong Foundation broadcasts. In recent years, when the world was immobilised by the pandemic, the soloist did not stop working actively: he prepared riveting song cycles by American composers, taught online, and gave interviews about music and vocal art.

Thomas Hampson was the first visiting performer at the New York Philharmonic and was appointed its first ever Artist-in-Residence. In addition to his intensive work on opera scene, the soloist also presents chamber music programmes. His repertoire includes a large number of German Lied, Beethoven’s cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the Distant Beloved), Mahler’s songs, and a multi-coloured retrospective of vocal music by American composers, therefore he is often referred to as “an ambassador of song”.

Moreover, Hampson also appears on stage as a conductor. At the Vilnius Festival the singer will masterfully combine both competences – the singer’s and the conductor’s – in a monographic programme of symphonic and vocal music by Austrian composer Gustav Mahler: excerpts from symphonies will intermix with songs from the Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Boy’s Magic Horn).