VILNIUS FESTIVAL 2023
27th festival
Musical odyssey
June 2–29, 2023

VF 2023 programme
VF 2023 booklet

The Vilnius Festival’s ‘A Musical Odyssey’ is a unique story, told by musicians returning to Vilnius regularly or visiting the city for the first time, and sharing their experience of events that have shaken the world and all of us in recent years, the challenges of surviving on the path of music that they chose as children, and their fidelity to their listeners.

It is fascination, nostalgia, and sincere love for Vilnius, one of the most beautiful and mysterious cities in Europe, which is celebrating its 700th birthday.

It is the joyful first encounters that become long-lasting creative friendships: a dialogue between the French cellist Camille Thomas and the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Victorien Vanoosten in the concert ‘My Heart Opens to Your Voice’; the conversation between the composer Mindaugas Urbaitis and the Austrian musical giant Anton Bruckner; the virtuoso concert given by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Sergej Krylov and the Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son, tinged with the skillfully crafted Divertissement by the 18th-century Castellan of Vilnius Motiejus Radvila; ‘Prayer of the Baltics’ in the strains of Duettissimo and the voices of the Vilnius municipality choir Jauna Muzika; the masterpieces by the violin genius Paganini performed by a virtuoso quartet from Vienna; and a cellists’ serenade to Vilnius, in an inspiring meeting between the Polish Cello Quartet and Lithuania’s Cello Club.

It is maestro Andrzey Boreyko’s sensitive return to his father’s homeland and his roots; Mūza Rubackytė’s uplifting journey home with Franz Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage; Alexey Botvinov’s intimate meeting with Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations; Onutė Narbutaitė’s dedication to the multinational Vilnius in Centones meae urbi; a heartfelt greeting from Elina Nechayeva and the Estonian Glasperlenspiel Sinfonietta, conducted by the maestro Andres Kaljuste; and a joyful salute from the brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen, who have fallen in love with Vilnius!

Let’s meet and savour our mutual experience in this port-of-call on an endless musical odyssey, the 27th Vilnius Festival!

Rūta Prusevičienė
Director of the Vilnius Festival