About

The Vilnius Festival begins its musical odyssey on a lyrically hopeful note – all the works to be performed at the concert are linked by the leitmotif of faith and peace, which is symbolically embodied not only in the programme of the concert, 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 – Chaconne, the baroque movement of the opus, is performed at various events to honour the memory of the great personalities of the Polish nation. The life of Mieczysław 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 approaching an abstract, lyrical reflection on liturgy. Ludwig van Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy is akin to an introduction to the famous Ninth Symphony in D minor, guiding mankind towards an idealistic brotherhood. The concert programme culminates with Arvo Pärt’s Credo, one of the composer’s most dramatic works, text and music of which symbolically unite the conflicting worlds of good and evil.

Dmitri Levkovich, a Ukrainian-born pianist living in Canada, studied piano with the legendary Armenian pianist Sergei Babayan. The renowned German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has praised Levkovich’s artistic sophistication, while critics of the American Record Guide, America’s oldest classical music review magazine, have noted the pianist’s very mature perception of music. Levkovich has given concerts at the renowned Carnegie Hall, the Théâtre des Champs Elysees in Paris, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Frankfurt Staatsoper, the Beijing National Arts Centre 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 is a prize-winner of 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 winner of the BBC Young Musician Award. Since his debut in 2017, Kanneh-Mason has been annually performing at the BBC Proms, the world’s largest classical music festival. He has appeared with the London Mozart Players, Paris Chamber Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Camerata Salzburg, Hallé Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Toronto Symphony, Boston Symphony, São Paulo Symphony, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. 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. 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.

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