About

This concert combines the art of the piano and string quartet, and its secrets are revealed by one of Lithuania’s most famous quartets, Čiurlionis Quartet, a recipient of the National Prize for Culture and Art, and the young talented pianist Ignas Maknickas, born in California, raised in Lithuania and currently based in London. He has won numerous competitions, including the 19th Fryderyk Chopin Competition for Children and Youth in Szafarnia, the 20th International Competition Young Virtuoso Zagreb, the Aarhus International Piano Competition, etc.; he won the Young Classical Artists Trust international audition in 2023, was the winner of the Royal Over-Seas League Annual Music Competition in 2024, and made his debut on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune programme with Sean Rafferty. Maknickas has performed with many orchestras, including the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra (Indiana, USA), the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, and the London Mozart Orchestra. He has given recitals in such prestigious venues as Wigmore Hall and Steinway Hall in London, Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, Charlottenborg Festival Hall in Copenhagen, and the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Concert Hall in Vilnius.

In addition to the solo performance, in which the pianist will interpret works by Fryderyk Chopin, the programme will feature chamber music by composers from the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century little known in Lithuania. Julius Röntgen, born in Leipzig into a family of musicians, studied with Carl Reinecke (just like Čiurlionis!) and Franz Lachner, one of the closest friends of Franz Schubert. Later moving to Amsterdam, Röntgen was one of the founders of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and the world-famous Concertgebouw Orchestra.  

Hungarian Ernö Dohnányi is regarded as one of the most influential pianists in 20th century Hungarian music life. He performed many of his own works, including the Piano quintet No. 2, Op. 26 (presented in this concert), composed at the outbreak of the WWI, saturated with lyricism, but also drama and resignation, dispersed by the spirit of the elegant Viennese Waltz of the late 19th century.