MINDAUGAS URBAITIS - "Bruckner Revisited" for orchestra (2023, premiere; creation of the piece for the Vilnius Festival was supported by LATGA)
CLAUDE DEBUSSY–SALLY BEAMISH – Suite for cello and orchestra
CAMILLE SAINT-SAËNS - Aria "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" from the opera "Samson and Delilah" (version for cello and orchestra)
ANTON BRUCKNER - Symphony no. 4 in E flat major ("Romantic")
in 1997 Founded by the largest Lithuanian concert organization - the Lithuanian National Philharmonic - the Vilnius Festival, one of the country's most important music events, is being held this year for the 27th time. Camille Thomas, cellist of French and Belgian origin, will appear at the opening concert of this year's festival with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra led by maestro Modesto Pitrėnas. According to music critics, her singing is characterized by optimism, vitality and joyful drive. in 2017 this charismatic performer has signed an exclusive contract with the prestigious record company Deutsche Grammophon. With the power of his art to bring people of different cultures together, C. Thomas says that "music gives hope to the beauty and greatness of the human soul." Her second CD "Voice of Hope" was released in 2020, where the cellist recorded Fazil Say's Concerto for cello and orchestra dedicated to her "Never Give Up". During the quarantine, C. Thomas did not stop spreading his ideas, he organized performances on the roofs of cultural institutions in Paris.
C. Thomas started playing the cello when she was just four years old and studied in Paris, Berlin and Weimar under Marcel Bardon, Stephan Forck, Frans Helmerson and Wolfgang-Emanuel Schmidt. Her concert routes stretch all over the world, the artist has collaborated with world-famous trampoline masters Paavo Järvi, Mikko Franck, Marc Soustrot, Kent Nagano, etc., performed with ensembles such as Bremen's "Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie", "Sinfonia Varsovia", St. Cecilia Academy, Hamburg State, Lucerne Festival, Bordeaux National, Brussels Philharmonic, etc. orchestras. The Nippon Music Foundation gave the artist a unique opportunity to play Antonio Stradivari's famous 1730. made by Feuermann cello.
In the program of the opening concert of the festival, there is a 19th-century piece filled with emotional momentum. the music of French and Austrian composers Saint-Saëns and Bruckner and two opuses by contemporary authors, which seem to absorb the great 19th century music. composers' world of sounds. This is the British Sally Beamish in 2006. an original suite of arrangements of Claude Debussy's works and the latest "Bruckner Revisited" by the Lithuanian author Mindaugas Urbaitis, an opus that paraphrases the work of the romantic Anton Bruckner in the context of ambient music, using a reduced composition of Bruckner's orchestra and additional use of electric guitar and synthesizer.
