About

One of the most distinctive and perhaps warmest traditions of the Vilnius Festival is the special attention paid to foreign guests and the emphasis on their creative and biographical connections with Lithuania. This time, the Vilnius Festival welcomes performers from Ukraine – pianist Dmytro Choni, renowned for his exceptionally subtle touch, and conductor Oksana Lyniv, a representative of the famous Ukrainian artistic dynasty.

Vienna-based Dmytro Choni is appreciated internationally for his impeccable playing technique, astonishing virtuosity, and exceptional musical sensitivity. ‘Choni creates a goosebump-inducing sound world,’ wrote a UK magazine dedicated to the art of piano. In recent years, Choni has captured top prizes at international piano competitions, including a bronze medal at the legendary Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

At the Vilnius Festival concert with the LNSO, Choni will perform Ferenc Liszt’s First piano concerto, a work that ushered in a new era of piano music, which Liszt worked on with great diligence, leaving behind six manuscript versions.

Conductor Oksana Lyniv, artistic director of the Bologna Opera Theatre and one of the founders of the Ukrainian Youth Festival, was the first female conductor to step onto the stage of the legendary Bayreuth Festival. She began her career as an assistant to principal conductor at the Odessa National Opera, later served as an assistant to the renowned Kirill Petrenko at the Bavarian State Opera. In 2016, Lyniv appeared as a guest conductor at the Graz Opera, later becoming principal conductor of the theatre and the Graz Philharmonic.

On the international scene, Lyniv is particularly admired for her innovation, precise technique, and energy, which sometimes lead to unconventional interpretations of classical works.

The concert will symbolically open with the symphonic poem Grazhyna by Boris Lyatoshynski, one of the foremost Ukrainian composers of the 20th century. The opus is also known as a ballad due to its evocative musical narrative. Grazhyna was composed to mark the centenary of the death of Adam Mickiewicz, one of the most famous Lithuanian-Polish poets (whose poem Grazhyna inspired the symphonic poem).  

The evening will be crowned by Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, considered by the composer himself to be one of his best works. Although this symphony has a distinctive, unique sound, the composer incorporated elements from some of his earlier symphonies into it: from the famous No. 5, known as Fate, he borrowed the motoric force generated by a repeated rhythm; from No. 6, Pastoral, – the idea of depicting nature through musical sounds. Due to its exceptional dynamics and continuous rhythmic pulsation, this symphony is called a ‘celebration of movement,’ conveying the energy that glorifies life.