About

This February, pianist Petras Geniušas celebrates an impressive anniversary. A recipient of the Lithuanian National Culture and Arts Prize, Professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, Geniušas’ concert tours stretch from Vilnius to Japan, from jazz festivals, drama, ballet, and cabaret performances to solo and orchestral concerts in prestigious concert halls around the world: Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall in New York, Tokyo’s Geijitsu Geikijo, Vienna’s Musikverein, Stevenson in Scotland, concert halls in Zurich, Tel Aviv, and others. Geniušas has won several top prizes at international piano competitions (Pilar Bayona in Zaragoza, Y.C.A.A. in Oberlin, PBA Piano Competition) and has performed with such music legends as Yehudi Menuhin and Mstislav Rostropovich. Geniušas is constantly searching for new forms of expression and unorthodox musical experiences; he has been recognized with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) award and decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas.

In the first half of this ‘Different Kind of Recital,’ the pianist will perform solo, and after intermission he will be joined by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and conductor Gediminas Gelgotas, the pianist’s regular stage partners. The performers have chosen works from various eras and of diverse genres: Viennese classicist Joseph Haydn and contemporary American composer Philip Glass, as well as Australian composer Carl Vine; English composer Gerald Finzi from the first half of the 20th century, Polish composer Henryk Mikołaj Górecki, who began his career in the 1950s, and tonight’s concert conductor and composer Gediminas Gelgotas.