Festival Opening Concert.  Mūza Rubackytė presents the programme "From the Baltic to the Adriatic".

In this programme, the legendary Lithuanian pianist Mūza Rubackytė subtly combines different epochs and cultures, revealing a harmony of musical mastery and history.

The stage diva, who has amassed a large repertoire in her arsenal, has chosen a very delicate and at the same time technically demanding programme for the opening concert of the 13th International M. K. Čiurlionis Festival at the Palanga Kurhaus Concert Hall, where she will pay special attention to Čiurlionis, who is celebrating the 150th anniversary of his birth. The work of this Lithuanian genius combines music, painting and literature to create a special atmosphere, which M. Rubackytė will reveal with her characteristic delicacy. The concert will also feature works by Leopold Godowski, one of the best pianists of all time, who was born in Žasliai, accompanied by the painterly opuses of the contemporary composer Raminta Šerkšnytė, and culminating in the most wonderful movements of Ferenc Liszt's cycle The Year of Wanderings.

The programme "From the Baltic to the Adriatic", performed by Mūza Rubackytė, is an intriguing musical journey through various epochs and countries.
 

Programme

Part I

M. Čiurlionis (1875 - 1911) - Three Preludes and Two Nocturnes

Leopold Godowsky (1870 - 1938) - Sonata in E minor

Raminta Šerkšnytė (born 1975) - Sonata in E minor.) - Tales for keyboard

Ferenc Liszt (1811 - 1886) - Notebook for Part II of the piano cycle "The Year of Wandering"

Venice and Naples (S 162):

The Gondolier

Daina

Tarantella
 

Part II

Ferenc Liszt (1811 - 1886) - The Fountains of the Villa d'Este, from the piano cycle The Year of Wanderings, notebook III.

Sonata in B minor
 

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Lithuanian-born Mūza Rubackytė, currently based in Vilnius, Paris and Geneva, is a pianist who actively performs on all continents, in the world's most renowned concert halls, and with the most distinguished conductors and orchestras. She studied at the Lithuanian Conservatoire (now the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, LAMT) and the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatoire. After winning the All-Union Competition, she was recognised as one of the best pianists in the USSR, and in 1981 she won the prestigious International Liszt-Bartók Piano Competition in Budapest. For seven years Rubatsky was forbidden to travel outside the USSR, as a result of which she was unable to fulfil any of the numerous prestigious contracts she had signed in the West. When the opportunity arose, in 1989 she was already in Paris on a traineeship, and in 1990 she was the winner of the International French Music Competition "Les Grand Maîtres Français" in Paris.

Today she performs on all continents. Her tour schedule includes prestigious venues in Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Mexico, Japan and exotic destinations such as Morocco, Malaysia, Singapore, Mozambique and the islands of Bermuda, Martinique and Puerto Rico. She is invited every year to perform at the Paris Opera, and her recitals have been given in renowned concert halls such as London's Wigmore Hall, Bonn's Beethoven-Haus, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw and the Brussels Conservatory, Paris' Salle Gaveau, Tivoli's Villa d'Este, Buenos Aires' Teatro Colón, Mexico City's Auditorio Blas Galant, the Santiago Opera House, Rio de Janeiro's Teatro Municipal, the Cairo Opera House, Tokyo's Casals Hall and others. Rubackytė has performed with many top-class orchestras in the USA, and has collaborated with the Teatro Municipal in Santiago, the Symphony Orchestras of Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, Moscow Tchaikovsky and Lausanne. The composer K. Penderecki has regularly invited Mūza Rubackytė to perform his piano concerto Resurrection, dedicated to the victims of 9/11, and she conducted the maestro's Resurrection in Bogota in 2016 and at the 85th anniversary celebrations in Warsaw. In 2006, M. Rubackytė was awarded the Lithuanian Government Prize, the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Art, and in 2018, President Grybauskaitė presented her with the Grand Commander's Cross for her services to Lithuania. In 2012, the pianist was awarded the Pro Cultura Hungarica Prize by the Hungarian Ministry of Culture for her promotion of Liszt's legacy worldwide. She is also the President of the Liszt Association "LISZTuania".

The festival is organised by the public institution "Klasika LT".