About

Tonight, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra (LCO) and its artistic director, violinist and conductor Sergej Krylov collaborate with pianist Anna Geniušienė, a winner of many international competitions. She has performed at venues such as the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., Zurich’s Tonhalle, Vienna’s Konzerthaus, and the La Roque d’Anthéron Festival in France. In 2022, Geniušienė won the Silver Medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in the USA. In July of the same year, Musical America magazine named her Young Artist of the Month, and in June 2023, her photo graced the cover of Pianist magazine.

Having won first prizes in the Stradivari and Kreisler competitions, Krylov has performed at the Berlin and Munich Philharmonics, the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and elsewhere around the world. At the 2022 Vilnius Festival, the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society paid a special tribute to Krylov by awarding him the 1st degree honorary badge “I Serve Music”. With the LCO, Krylov has given more than two hundred concerts around the world.

The concert programme includes Austrian and Lithuanian music. Johann Nepomuk Hummel was a pupil of Mozart, Haydn and Salieri, a friend of Beethoven, Schubert, Goethe and Schiller, and teacher of Mendelssohn. Hummel’s music linked the Viennese classics with the romantics. Programmed in tonight’s concert, Concerto in G major is characterised by light and optimism, and showcases the exquisite virtuosic texture and delicacy of both instruments. For many years Hummel’s music has been undeservedly forgotten, seemingly overshadowed by Mozart’s genius, and now it is being resurrected with new life.

Joseph Haydn, the eldest of the Viennese classicists, composed most of his scores during his thirty-years’ service at the court of the Dukes of Esterházy. With concerts twice a week, there was a great need for new compositions. Thus, for one of the concerts in 1771, Kapellmeister Haydn composed Symphony No. 43 in E flat major. In the Sturm und Drang period, he boldly and originally experimented with various forms and harmonic means, using the refined effects of early classical orchestral music and imbuing his compositions with a very sensual expression.

The urban worldview of Antanas Rekašius has determined the spontaneity of his music, its untameable expression. His compositions are full of humour, mockery and grotesque, hypertrophied stylisations of music from different eras. According to Donatas Katkus, “this is an openly theatrical expression, a spectacle of sounds, where communication, the vividness of characters and temperament are more important. Rekašius was a poet of hypertrophy – sensualism, hysterics, nervousness, and at the same time playfulness, surprises, contrasts and oppositions.” Music for Strings No. 2 (1999) is perhaps the composer’s most frequently performed work and is a favourite of performers and audiences alike due to its zest.

The festival organisers:
Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society, PI “Vilniaus festivaliai”, Vilnius City Municipality