PRESENTATION OF LITHUANIAN SUMMER FESTIVALS: BETWEEN ART AND ENTERTAINMENT 0

2010-07-13

(Review of repertoire of festivals)Justina Paltanavičiūtė

www.kamane.lt , 2010 07 13

Listeners of the summer festival. Photo from lrytas.lt

In brief: The summer season is suitable for organising various festivals; untraditional spaces, i.e., various manors, parks, museum courtyards or terraces are suitable for this purpose. The programme is often adjusted to open-air stages: classical music is combined with jazz; also, stage opuses, concert performances and projects prepared for festivals in particular are offered.

Bistrampolis Festival invites to enjoy music in the stud farm or park of the manor. The festival offers concerts of various genres: chamber, symphony, vocal music pieces, jazz and popular classics form the programme. The concept of events is adjusted to the space; therefore, priority is given to lighter and entertaining events. Musical performances are planned in the programme of the festival: “The King Forgot the Alphabet“, “Where the Dreams Are Flying“. Rūta Ščiogolevaitė will perform jazz ballads on the 8th of August and Danielius Praspaliauskis Jazz Trio will replenish the jazz programme on the 18th of July too. Classical music is offered in addition to light music in Bistrampolis Festival; still, no bigger genres will be presented this year. Therefore, the festival is the most suitable for entertaining music lovers who want to enjoy music in the surroundings of the manor.

Music will resound for the 7th year in sequence in TytuvėnaiFestival (also in Kelmė, Kurtuvėnai, Baisogala, Joniškis) on the 6th of June – 28th of August. The biggest attention is allocated to chamber music in this festival. The list of performers includes Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra and State Chamber Choir Polifonija, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and Tytuvėnai Monastery Ensemble, various chamber ensembles. A tribute is paid to Lithuanian music in this festival in addition to exotic programmes offered to listeners. Opuses of J.Naujalis, St.Šimkus, Č.Sasnauskas, A.Kačanauskas, K.V.Banaitis, B.Gorbulskis, G.Kuprevičius, A.Martinaitis, O.Narbutaitė will resound in the festival.

Paežeriai Manor Festival is a rather young event taking place for the third time only. Therefore, it is rather short: it lasts from the 12th of June to the 3rd of July. In addition to chamber music concerts, synthesis of jazz and classical music resounded in it.

Christopher Summer Festival is taking place in Vilnius from the 1st of July to the 31st of August. As compared with the aforementioned festivals, its programme is much more serious and diverse, the range of the offered music is rather wide: from jazz to sacred music. The majority of the festival concerts are organised at St. Catherine and St. Casimir Churches, some concerts are given in the courtyard of Vilnius Teacher’s House. The festival offers non-academic programme, sacred music concerts as well as slightly more academic events. One of such events was the opening of the festival, in which Royal String Quartet from Poland performed string quartets of K.Schymanowski and F.Schubert. As compared with other festivals, Christopher Summer Festival is much less eclectic.

Meanwhile, the choice of concerts is extremely wide in Pažaislis Music Festival lasting from the 30th of May to the 29th of August. The annotation of the festival announces: “From popular music to Baroque, from passionate flamenco rhythms to lulling romance.” It means that the festival should please diverse listeners: lovers of chamber, vocal or symphonic music. One problem could be noticed in the festival: lack of concept while forming the programme. The festival is organised for the 15th time this year, it is also dedicated to the 20th anniversary of restored independence of Lithuania. Various other anniversaries have not been forgotten too: 200th birth anniversary of R. Schumann, 135th birth anniversary of the Lithuanian classic M. K. Čiurlionis, 200th birth anniversary of F. Chopin. The festival has taken strong positions under the music sky of Kaunas and livens up the cultural life of the city and surrounding towns every year. Lithuanian performers as well as numerous guests from other countries participate in the festival.

However, summer is the time for rest when everybody rejoices at the possibility to be in nature. Cosy atmosphere, beautiful environment and emotional music is frequently more important to listeners, who are not very big music gourmands. They are not inclined to analyse professionalism or subtleties of a performance too much.   


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