MARCHES AND MANIPULATIONS: Lithuanian Symphonic Wind Orchestra

As every year, the Lithuanian Symphonic Wind Orchestra presents a program dedicated to avant-garde contemporary music at the festival, prepared by the acclaimed contemporary music interpreter and the orchestra's chief conductor, Karolis Variakojis. The concert will feature music by the instrumental theater classic Mauricio Kagel.

In the festival's program dedicated to contemporary music, the Lithuanian Symphonic Wind Orchestra invites you to a provocative performance dedicated to the work of one of the most prominent 20th-century musical experimenters, the Argentine-born German composer Mauricio Kagel. The composer's name is inseparable from instrumental theater, where satire, theatricality, and political subtext are masterfully intertwined. The creator sought for music to be not only heard but also watched, which is why performers in his works often become a kind of actor. The composition "Ten Marches to Miss the Victory" and the radio play "The Tribune" performed at the concert deconstruct the march genre (traditionally associated with military power and discipline) and turn it into a tool of manipulation, engaging the listener in an ironic dialogue about power and society.

Karolis Variakojis graduated from conducting studies at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in 2015, in the class of Prof. Juozas Domarkas. From 2015 to 2020, he led the Alytus Youth Symphony Orchestra "Svajonė," and since 2020, he has been the chief conductor of the Lithuanian Symphonic Wind Orchestra. He is one of the most active interpreters of contemporary music, a founder of the ensemble "Synaesthesis" (together with composer Dominykas Digimas), and a guest conductor for the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre Orchestra, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, and others.