Performers:
LIEUTHUA NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
(artistic director and chief conductor Modestas Pitrėnas)
Kaunas STATE CHOIR
(artistic director and chief conductor Modestas Pitrėnas) SHEKU KANNEH-MASON (cello; United Kingdom)
DMITRI LEVKOVICH (piano; Ukraine, Canada)
Conductor ROBERTAS ŠERVENIKAS


Programme:
KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI - Chaconne from the Polish Requiem for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra
MIECZYSŁAW WEINBERG - Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in C minor, Op. 43
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN - Choral Fantasy for piano, choir and orchestra, Op. 80
ARVO PÄRT - "Credo" for piano, mixed choir and orchestra

The Vilnius Festival begins its musical odyssey on a lyrically hopeful note - all the works in the concert are linked by the leitmotif of faith and peace, which is symbolically expressed not only in the concert programme, but also in the fragment of the title credo in pace - I believe in peace.

Krzysztof Penderecki dedicated the Polish Requiem to the heroes and victims of Poland, and the Baroque movement of the work is used to honour the memory of the great personalities of the Polish nation at various events in Chaconne. The life of Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a Jewish composer born in Poland, was marked by the horrors of the Holocaust, which found an echo in the composer's neoclassical style, which approaches an abstract, lyrical reflection on liturgy. Ludwig van Beethoven's Choral Fantasy is like an introduction to the famous Ninth Symphony in D minor, leading mankind towards an idealistic brotherhood. The concert programme culminates with Arvo Pärt's Credo, one of the composer's most dramatic works, whose text and music symbolically unite the contradictory worlds of good and evil.

Canadian-born Ukrainian pianist Dmitri Levkovich studied piano with the legendary Armenian pianist Sergei Babayan. The renowned German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has praised the pianist's artistic sophistication, while the critics of the American Record Guide, the oldest American music criticism platform, have noted Levkovich's very mature understanding of music. Levkovich has performed at the renowned Carnegie Hall, the Théâtre des Champs Elysees in Paris, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Frankfurt Staatsoper, the National Arts Centre in Beijing, and elsewhere, and has performed more than 30 different piano concertos with the Cleveland, Utah, Chinese National, Dresden Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio and other orchestras. Levkovich has won numerous international competitions in Germany, China, Portugal, Italy and the USA.

A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London, cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason rose to fame in 2016 as the winner of the BBC Young Artist Competition. Since his debut in 2017, Sh. Kanneh-Mason has been performing at the BBC Proms, the world's largest classical music festival, every summer since 2017. He has performed with the London Mozart Players, Paris Chamber Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Camerata Salzburg, Hallé Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Boston Symphony, São Paulo Symphony, Birmingham Symphony and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras. He has given recitals at the Wigmore Hall in London, the Louvre in Paris and elsewhere. In 2018, he made a name for himself at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Sh. Kanneh-Mason is not only an accomplished cellist, but also an arranger and composer, with sheet music collections of his repertoire published by Faber Music.