ARVO PÄRT: GREATEST WORKS. An evening of music by the legendary creator: the most famous works in one concert. NIKO with orchestra, cond. Gediminas Gelgotas

An exclusive evening of Arvo Pärt's music to take place in Vilnius: the most famous works in one concert

A special evening awaits the Lithuanian audience this autumn – a program featuring the most famous works of the legendary composer Arvo Pärt, which brought the creator global recognition, will be performed in a single concert. The "Arvo Pärt. Greatest Works" concert, taking place on October 18 at the LVSO Concert Hall, will bring together some of the most significant works by the famous Estonian composer, who is the most performed of all living classical composers in the world today. During this evening, the audience will have an exclusive opportunity to hear music that has become an important part not only of this composer's body of work but also of the entire contemporary classical canon. The unique concert will feature the Vilnius-based ensemble NIKO with an orchestra, conducted by Gediminas Gelgotas, performing the legendary creator's works.

Having celebrated his honorable 90th birthday last year, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is one of the most significant contemporary authors in the world. Alongside creators such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, or John Adams, he is considered one of the most important figures in contemporary music. The famous minimalist S. Reich has said of his colleague's phenomenal music: "He doesn't follow the fashions of the time at all, and yet he is incredibly popular." A. Pärt gained global fame with his unique "tintinnabuli" style (Latin: tintinnabulum – a little bell). In "tintinnabuli" music, highly concentrated material expresses the composer's special relationship with silence, and the style itself reveals the creator's philosophy, closely linked to Christian values, religious practice, and the search for truth, beauty, and purity.

A. Pärt was led to this distinctive musical world by long previous creative searches. After his studies, he was one of the first in Estonia to take up the most modern composition techniques of the time – neoclassicism, dodecaphony, serialism, sonorism, aleatoric music, and collage principles. Although these works received high praise, none of the directions attracted the composer for long. However, even then, features that would later become the basis of the "tintinnabuli" style were emerging in A. Pärt's music – powerful dramaturgy, concentrated musical material, developed form, and the sacrality of sound.

In the 1970s, the composer turned to early music – he delved into Gregorian chant, the polyphony of the Notre Dame school, and Renaissance music. The result of these studies was the "tintinnabuli" style, born in 1976, which was first heard in the short piano piece "Für Alina", and soon after in the works "Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten", "Fratres", "Tabula rasa", and "Spiegel im Spiegel".

A turning point in the career of the composer, who created a unique musical language, was the 1984 album "Tabula Rasa" released by the label ECM Records, after which A. Pärt's music spread to the world's largest concert halls, festivals, and recording catalogs. Today, his works are commissioned by the most prestigious orchestras and music institutions, and his music is constantly performed on the world's most significant stages. For example, in 2015, the Los Angeles Philharmonic commissioned the work "Greater Antiphons", which was premiered that same year by the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra led by the famous Gustavo Dudamel.

The concert will feature legendary A. Pärt opuses – the elegiac and hypnotic "Cantus in memoriam Benjamin Britten", the "Da Pacem Domine" known as a prayer for peace, the ascetically transparent "Summa", one of the composer's most frequently performed works "Fratres", the "Tabula rasa" that opened global fame to A. Pärt, and one of the most significant works of his late period, "Trisagion".

The most famous works of Arvo Pärt will be performed in this concert by the Vilnius-based ensemble NIKO – one of the most prominent Lithuanian collectives, which has earned international recognition for its original and visual performances. The musicians play from memory and combine top-level string mastery with subtle visual solutions. Constantly awaited by Lithuanian and foreign audiences, the ensemble has performed in such prestigious halls as New York's Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Leipzig's Gewandhaus, London's St Martin-in-the-Fields and Roundhouse, Zurich's Tonhalle, and Aix-en-Provence's Grand Théâtre de Provence. NIKO also played during the visits of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis to Lithuania and performed for Queen Sonja of Norway; they have collaborated with many internationally recognized performers – Kristjan Järvi, David Geringas, Mari Samuelsen, David Nebel, Peter Gregson, Ksenija Sidorova, and Francesco Tristano. NIKO was founded in 2006 by composer and conductor Gediminas Gelgotas, whose own music is performed in prestigious European halls and festivals.