On 6 June, Vilnius Festival audience will be treated to a musical journey through the world of French genius Maurice Ravel. On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra (LNSO) and soloists will perform his works, including the unrivalled Bolero. The LNSO will be joined by stars of extraordinary brilliance – Gabrielė Bukinė (soprano), who has stormed the opera scene like a meteor, and maestro Victorien Vanoosten, persistently mesmerising the audience, who will also appear as a pianist.

“It’s great to be able to persuade others to do something nice together, to show the way for us all to do it. I’m my own harshest critic and I push myself because I don’t want to let musicians down. I do the same everywhere I go. Especially in Vilnius. I am sure that every work is stronger and more evocative when we perform it with love, with an emotional connection,” said the French pianist and conductor Victorien Vanoosten in one of his interviews. Having been the principal guest conductor of the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra (LNSO) for a year now, he has produced spectacular romantic music concerts.

In this Vilnius Festival concert, Vanoosten, together with the LNSO and Gabrielė Bukinė, a soloist who has stormed the theatre and concert stages, will explore the horizons of France through the prism of Maurice Ravel’s work. The writer Romain Rolland, also renowned as an authoritative music historian and critic, has named Ravel the greatest French music artist, mentioning him alongside Jean-Philippe Rameau and Claude Debussy. Ravel, Debussy’s younger contemporary, was no less adventurous, with rich imagination as well as impeccable compositional technique and artistic taste.

If one had to describe the composer Ravel and his creative legacy in one word, it would be colourful. His impressionistic sense, the variety of timbres in his orchestrations and the intimate sound of each instrument, his fondness of the works of the old masters, his friendship with George Gershwin, his use of Spanish folklore (his mother was of Basque origin) and his attraction to the dance genre, all attest to a vivid personality and a multifaceted creative world.

Works inspired by the dance genre will be featured in this Vilnius Festival concert. The audience will not only hear the famous Bolero, but also Daphnis et Chloé Suite No.1, based on the namesake ballet. In fact, the composer subtitled Daphnis et Chloé a ‘symphonie chorégraphique’ (choreographic symphony) rather than a ballet. The orchestra in this ‘choreographic symphony’ presents a very rich palette of colours, reflected in the suite.

In this journey through the world of Ravel and French music, the conductor Vanoosten will also appear as a pianist, playing dazzling and vivacious Concerto for piano and orchestra in G major (1931), dedicated to the pianist Marguerite Long. “Why be a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?” – is probably one of Ravel’s most quoted phrases said to George Gershwin. The Concerto for piano will also testify to their friendship and reciprocal influence. It exposes echoes from Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and the Concerto for piano and orchestra in F major. Ravel’s Concerto is playful like a divertissement. As the composer himself said: “A concerto can be entertaining and brilliant, it doesn’t have to try to be profound or to achieve dramatic effects. Some of the great classical composers are said to have written their concertos not for the piano but against it.”

Ravel’s music is often enhanced with exotic motifs. Featured in this programme, his song cycle Shéhérazade is considered to be one of the first oriental harmony experiments in the composer’s oeuvre, with accents of eastern sonorities. In this cycle, Ravel’s orchestration seems to create an orientalist landscape for the wandering soloist, opening up a travel diary. The extraordinarily colourful solo part of Shéhérazade will feature Bukinė, this year’s Opera Soloist of the Year.

Vilnius Festival concert French Horizons with Maurice Ravel. LNSO, Victorien Vanoosten, Gabrielė Bukinė will take place on Friday, 6 June at 19.00 in the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Concert Hall. All concerts of Vilnius Festival are announced on the website www.nationalphilharmonic.lt  The festival is organised by the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society and PI Vilnius Festivals, with the support of Vilnius City Municipality, Juozas and Laima Magelinskas and Artis Centrum Hotels.

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VILNIUS FESTIVAL 2025