BALTIJOS AIDAI

ECHOES OF THE BALTICS

The BIRŠTONAS SUMMER OF MUSIC festival invites audiences to Echoes of the Baltics, a piano recital by Monika Dars offering a musical journey through the cultural worlds of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

Audiences in Birštonas will be the first to hear this programme before it is presented at the Nessun dorma festival in Vilnius.

The programme brings together four prominent composers from the Baltic countries: Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, Arvo Pärt, Pēteris Vasks and Zita Bružaitė. Their music reveals a distinctive relationship with nature, silence, light and inward contemplation. Landscapes of the changing seasons, the expanse of the lagoon, meditative tranquillity and poetic imagination will merge into a continuous musical narrative.

The music of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis holds a special place in this narrative. His works reveal a distinctive world of Lithuanian Romanticism, in which a brief piano miniature can encompass an intimation of nature, inner unease and a longing for infinity. His music will be heard alongside works by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, creator of the distinctive tintinnabuli style, the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks and the Lithuanian composer Zita Bružaitė.

Although their musical languages differ greatly, these composers share the ability to create a vast inner space from only a few notes. Silence becomes part of the music, while sound resembles a memory echoing in the distance. The intimate setting of Birštonas Kurhaus will allow listeners to hear the subtlest piano timbres and the finest details of each work.

Monika Dars is a pianist with extensive international concert experience, performing throughout Europe, North and South America, and Asia. As a soloist, she has appeared with the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Lviv Chamber Orchestra, Melomania Symphony Orchestra and the Symphony Orchestra of the National M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art. She also collaborates with musicians from across Europe and appears at chamber music festivals in Belgium, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Poland.

Her artistic career has been marked by significant international distinctions. Dars is a recipient of the Joseph Darche Piano Prize. With the Urban Piano Quartet, she won the Supernova chamber music competition in Belgium and the Nordic Strings competition in Denmark. Together with cellist Natania Hoffman, she received second prize at the Luigi Nono Chamber Music Competition in Italy. Her recordings have been broadcast on radio and television in several European countries, and her discography includes the albums Vasks & Brahms Piano Quartets and Resistance.

Monika Dars studied at the National M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art and the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in the class of Professor Veronika Vitaitė. She later continued her studies at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media, and Bern University of the Arts.

Echoes of the Baltics is the closing concert of the festival, bringing together the musical traditions of the three Baltic countries and revealing the sensitivity, restraint and inner light characteristic of the region’s culture.

Performer:
Monika Dars, piano

Programme: Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, Arvo Pärt, Pēteris Vasks, Zita Bružaitė

9 August, Sunday, 7 p.m.
Birštonas Kurhaus, 2 B. Sruogos Street