About

The closing concert of the Vilnius Piano Festival will be graced by pianist Mūza Rubackytė, the founder and artistic director of the festival, recipient of the Lithuanian National Prize for Culture and Art, one of the world’s most important ambassadors of Lithuanian musical culture, who has established artistic relations with many of the world’s foremost performers and invited them to perform on the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society’s scene.

This time the audience will have the opportunity to enjoy the interpretations of one of the most authoritative conductors of the present day, the Swiss conductor Stefan Lano, returning to the Vilnius stage again. Maestro Lano is also known as an opera conductor, enjoying invitations to the world’s leading opera houses. Lithuania got acquainted with the maestro already a couple of decades ago – in 2003 he conducted the production of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre. He also has led the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra on several occasions, taken part in the Vilnius Piano Festival, conducted programmes with Rubackytė as a soloist. In 2004, the LNSO, under the baton of Juozas Domarkas, performed a Lithuanian premiere of his Third Symphony. As a composer, Lano has won the BMI Prize, the Rockefeller Foundation Prize and the Firestone Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters. So, as a composer, this year Lano brings the world premiere of his latest opus to the Festival audience! Dedicated to Mūza Rubackytė, Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 2 (the score reads: à Mūza Rubackytė avec admiration et affection) will be performed by the dedicatee with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Lano.

The creative friendship between Rubackytė and Lano began during their concerts in Santiago (Chile) and has lasted almost 25 years. “I could never have imagined that a concert in Chile would eventually lead me to Lithuania: first to the National Opera and Ballet Theatre to conduct Puccini’s Turandot, and then to work with the wonderful orchestra that you, my dear listeners, will enjoy tonight,” says the conductor. Once in Vilnius, when he was proposed to write a piano concerto for Rubackytė, Lano did that, but... on a concert tour of Argentina, the manuscript of the score was stolen! “But Mūza did not give up so easily. Over the years, she kept reminding me that she is still waiting for the concerto. The pandemic has afforded me with time to fulfil my promise, which is not a commission, but rather an act of love and admiration for Mūza and the great symphony orchestra”, says Lano, inviting you to enjoy the musical discoveries and the rapport between these two personalities and the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra.