The canticle concert "Sound, Canticles", which was added to the programme of the Lithuanian Song Celebration in 1998, will bring together more than 500 Lithuanian canticleers. This stringed folk instrument will receive special attention at the Song Celebration: the traditions of kanklės in Lithuania date back to the 15th and 18th centuries, and their origins are linked to the beliefs of our ancestors.
The concert "Skambejte, kanklės" (Sound, Kanklės) will highlight the most important moments in the history of the development of ensemble kanklės in Lithuania. The audience will hear how new traditions of cancanning are being created based on the history of Lithuanian cancellos that were nationally sounded at the beginning of the last century.
The programme of the event will consist of performances of traditional cancellos from Lithuanian regions as well as performances by cancussion and concert ensembles of cancellos from other regions of Lithuania. The regional character of traditional cancanning will be revealed by the performances of ensembles from the regions of Vysočina, Samogitia and Klaipėda Region and Suvalkija, which play the repertoire of these regions on traditional cancellos. The programme will be graced by a performance by the Skriaudžiai ensemble 'Kanklės', the oldest cancan ensemble in Lithuania, from the Veiveriai Culture and Leisure Centre. The performance of the concert cancan ensembles, which bring together cancanists from the country's music and art schools, conservatories and the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, will include classics from the typical repertoire as well as the works of today's authors.
An important highlight of the programme will be the sincere intergenerational music-making, symbolising the inheritance of the cancanning tradition: student - teacher - performer. This is the main idea of the concert, which encompasses the traditions of the Lithuanian cancellos and their playing, as well as the perspective of their preservation.