Autumn seasons 2021. Lithuania

Odessa Regional Philharmonic
(15 Bunina St.)

📅 September 18, 19:00

• NEW IDEAS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA NICO
• Artistic Director – Gediminas Gelgotas

Odessa Regional Philharmonic
(15 Bunina St.)

📅 September 19, 19:00

• LITHUANIAN NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
  (Artistic Director – Modestas Pitrenas)
• NEW IDEAS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA NICO
  (Artistic Director – Gediminas Gelgotas)
• Alexey Botvinov (piano, Ukraine)
• Peter Gregson (cello, UK)
• Augusta Jusionite (violin, Lithuania)
• Conductor – Gediminas Gelgotas (Lithuania)

Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra (LNSO), one of the most refined and well-known European orchestras, was established in 1940 by composer, conductor, and pianist Balys Dvarionas. From 1964 to 2015, it was led by Juozas Domarkas, and since autumn 2015, Modestas Pitrėnas has been the artistic director and chief conductor. Robertas Šervenikas is the second conductor of the orchestra, while Juozas Domarkas remains the honorary conductor.

The orchestra annually presents around 50 concerts at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic and other venues in Lithuania, and it extensively tours abroad. It has visited many European countries, Japan, South Korea, South American countries, and has performed at some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, such as the Musikverein in Vienna, the Philharmonie in Cologne and Berlin, Barbican Centre in London, Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Berwaldhallen and the City Hall in Stockholm, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Metropolitan and Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Festival Hall in Osaka, National Centre for the Performing Arts in Mumbai, Thailand Cultural Centre, and many others. LNSO has also performed at prestigious festivals such as Schleswig-Holstein, Musica Romantica in Switzerland, “Moscow Stars,” “Russian Winter,” “Warsaw Autumn,” the Easter Festival of Ludwig van Beethoven in Warsaw, “Prague Spring,” and festivals in Stresa, Merano, Rheingau, Ludwigsburg, Riga, Gstaad, and more.

LNSO frequently undertakes concert tours, with notable performances in Thailand and India in 2017. In 2018, the orchestra commenced the Tour of the Centenary, performing at the Great Guild Hall in Riga, concert halls in Poland, Janáček Festival in the Czech Republic, and the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm. In 2019, LNSO performed in Latvia, and in early 2020, in Poland.

The orchestra has been conducted by outstanding historical figures and world-renowned maestros such as B. Dvarionas, S. Sondeckis, J. Aleksa, V. Fedoseev, M. Rostropovich, K. Penderecki, K. Masur, J. Franz, K. Diderich, N. Jarvi, K. Spering, R. Hickox, C. Eschenbach, O. Granjan, and M. Gražinytė-Tyla. LNSO has collaborated with many renowned performers, instrumentalists, and vocalists of various generations and nationalities, including singers M. Caballé, J. Norman, S. Larina, V. Urmana, and V. Noreika, pianists E. Gilels, D. Bashkirov, D. Pollack, S. Timpo, F. Kempf, M. Rubakite, and P. Geniušas, violinists G. Kremer, L. Kogan, V. Spivakov, Y. Rakhlin, S. Krylov, F. Graffin, A. Steinbacher, and V. Chepinskis, cellists M. Maisky, I. Monighetti, D. Geringas, D. Ishizaki, and M. Rostropovich, and violist Y. Bashmet.

The core of LNSO’s rich repertoire includes oratorios and symphonies from various epochs, as well as contemporary music with a focus on notable works by Lithuanian composers – from symphonic poems by M.K. Čiurlionis to the works of B. Dvarionas, E. Balsys, J. Juzeliūnas, A. Rekašius, F. Bayoras, V. Baranauskas, O. Balakauskas, V. Bartulis, O. Narbutaitė, R. Šerkšnaitė, A. Malcys, A. Šenderovas, and V. Hermanavičius, as well as the first symphonies by many young composers. Since 1991, LNSO has regularly participated in the Contemporary Music Festival in Gaidelis. The orchestra also performs Lithuanian composers’ music on Euroradio.

LNSO recordings have been released in Lithuania and abroad (“Melodia,” Marco Polo, Col legno, Ella Records, Naxos, Avie Records). Recent releases include a CD with works by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, issued by Naxos in August 2020, featuring LNSO, conductor Christopher Lyndon-Gee, singer Inna Galatenko, and pianist Oleg Bezborodko. In autumn 2020, a CD of Arvo Pärt’s “Lament” was recorded at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic and Vilnius Recording Studio with pianist Onutė Gražinytė, cellist Edward King, LNSO, and conductor M. Pitrėnas. Critics from the renowned German music magazine Fono Forum awarded this recording the highest 5-star rating. In early 2021, the prestigious Finnish recording company Ondine released a CD of Ž. Martišaitė’s “Saudade” with LNSO, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra (LCO), conductor Giedrė Šlekytė, and pianist Gabrielius Alekna.

Official Website: filharmonija.lt/LNSO

The music of leading Lithuanian composer Gediminas Gelgotas is performed by Christian Järvi, David Geringas, Daniel Hope, Lydia Baich, Roman Patkolo, Sergey Nakaryakov in concert halls such as Gewandhaus (Leipzig), Konzerthaus (Berlin), Tonhalle (Zurich), Mariinsky Theatre (St. Petersburg), Théâtre des Champs-Élysées (Paris). Planned concerts include Schleswig-Holstein, Beethovenfest, Kissinger Sommer, Merano, Young Euro Classics, Odessa Classics, and other renowned festivals, broadcast and covered by Mezzo TV, Arte TV, BR Klassik, Classic FM, “Violin Channel,” “Strad,” and “Gramophone.” His original works and arrangements are released on Naive Klaqueque and Deutsche Grammophone labels, with scores published by Peermusic. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of achievements he can list at the age of 34.

When Gelgotas was nineteen, he founded his own ensemble – New Ideas Chamber Orchestra (NICO), with which he regularly performs his own music at prestigious festivals and concert halls across Europe, as well as in the USA and Asia.

Today, critics point to his “breadth of vision, depth, freedom, courage, and, above all, openness” (N. Rogozhina, russculture.ru), as well as his unique and exceptionally attractive musical language, based on a modern multi-stylistic influence that combines strict melodic beauty and stunning rhythmic drive. His music is also often described as captivating for a new and younger classical music audience.

Since 2020, Gediminas Gelgotas has also been an Associate Professor of Composition at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (Vilnius).

Official Website: gediminasgelgotas.com

PETER GREGSON – one of the leading European composers and cellists, whose music will be featured in the concert on September 19. Peter Gregson – along with Max Richter – is a leader of the “RECOMPOSED” compositional movement, with the best works of this innovative musical trend being performed on September 18-19 in Odessa. Gregson is an exclusive artist with DEUTSCHE GRAMMOPHON (five albums recorded). His music is heard in Hollywood – for example, in hit series like “The New Pope,” “Bridgerton,” and films like “Blackbird” with S. Sarandon and K. Winslet, “A Little Chaos” with A. Rickman.

Gregson writes music for the top ballet companies, including the Chicago, Amsterdam, and Stuttgart ballet companies. As a cellist, Peter Gregson has performed in the world’s best concert halls, from the Royal Albert Hall in London to the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. His concert release at Hollywood’s Capitol Studios in January 2021 was released as a video film. Peter Gregson collaborates with various creative forms, from the popular video game “BOUNDLESS” to fashion shows for DIOR, BURBERRY, and RALPH LAUREN.

Official website: petergregson.co.uk

It all started in 2006 when 19-year-old Lithuanian composer Gediminas Gelgotas proposed the idea of creating an ensemble that would perform his music and bring his artistic visions to life. Now, 15 years later, this realization of “one artist’s vision,” named New Ideas Chamber Orchestra (NICO), continuously brings the composer’s music to leading classical and contemporary music venues and reaches new and young audiences of classical music with its attractive, captivating, and original musical performances.

The uniqueness of the NICO concept is defined by Gelgotas’s musical language, where the idiom of classical music is blended with light hints and influences of popular music. The composer’s vision of integrating minimalist choreographic details into performances, while musicians perform the music from memory and use unconventional techniques of string instruments and voice, creates thrilling concert experiences that break the boundaries between experimental, minimalist, contemporary art and more popular, mainstream music forms. Their shows also often feature stunning transcriptions of beloved classical works by Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart, as well as new music by minimalist composers such as Riley, Glass, Tavener, Pärt, and others. Watching NICO, you may want to dive inside yourself and reflect, or simply get up and dance – the effect is always mesmerizing, and the result inspires people of all ages.

NICO performs at prestigious concert venues and festivals, including Leipzig Gewandhaus, St. Martin-in-the-Fields and Roundhouse in London, Odessa and St. Petersburg Philharmonics, Usedomer (Germany), Toulon (France), Odessa Classics (Ukraine), Ventura (USA) music festivals. NICO also attracts international press attention: Classic FM, with 5.5 million listeners, featured NICO live from its studio, while the BBC World Service called NICO “truly worth attention” during a 10-minute broadcast about Gelgotas and his ensemble. In addition to their performances across Europe, Asia, and the USA, NICO has performed for His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis. Their latest recording session took place at the prestigious Real World Studios in the UK, with previous albums recorded at Paramount (Los Angeles), Metropolis (London), Peermusic Classical (Hamburg) and released by Peermusic Classical. NICO collaborates with performers such as Kristian Jarvi, David Geringas, Roman Patkolo, Marie Samuelsson, Avi Avital, Ksenia Sidorova, Kirill Troussov, Ole Edvard Antonsen, and others.

Orchestra members:

• AUGUSTA JUSIONYTĖ (violin, concertmaster)
• DALIA SIMAŠKAITĖ (violin)
• JULIJA IVANOVAITĖ (violin, viola)
• LIUDVIKAS SILICKAS (cello)
• AUGUSTINAS SOKALSKI (cello)
• VINCAS BAČIUS (double bass)
• GEDIMINAS GELGOTAS (founder | artistic director | composer)

Official website: nicomusic.eu

Alexey Botvinov belongs to the elite of the world’s pianism. The most famous Ukrainian pianist, Botvinov is rightly considered one of the best performers of Rachmaninoff’s music in the world. Among his extremely wide repertoire are over 30 piano concertos with orchestra. Botvinov is the only pianist in the world who has performed Bach’s complex masterpiece “Goldberg Variations” on stage more than 300 times.

Alexey Botvinov has toured in over 40 countries around the world. His solo performances and collaborations with leading orchestras in the largest concert halls – Berlin Philharmonic, Wigmore Hall in London, Tonhalle Zurich, Moscow House of Music, and other top venues in Europe and Asia – are consistently successful with audiences and critics. A People’s Artist of Ukraine, the media often describe him as “… a beacon for those seeking light,” or “… the master of creating miracles.” Recently, Russian news agency RIA Novosti wrote that “… Botvinov is one of the best pianists of our time.” Leading European newspapers write about the artist as “… a classical superstar” or “… a poet at the piano, distinguished by his unique pearly sound.”

Alexey Botvinov became the laureate of the First All-Union Rachmaninoff Competition in Moscow in 1983 at the age of 19, then the youngest participant. This was followed by victories at the International Bach and Clara Schumann Competitions.

Botvinov has a reputation as an innovator in the field of classical music. The artist is a pioneer of numerous unique projects, with particular attention drawn to those that synthesize various forms and genres of art. Botvinov experiments extensively with the combination of music and ballet (long-term collaboration with the ballet companies of Zurich and Berlin), music and theater (a unique innovative project based on the cult novel by M. Shishkin “The Writer”).

The pianist’s long-term collaboration with the outstanding choreographer H. Sperli, which began in 1996, culminated in 20 ballets set to music from all eras – from Mozart to Schnittke, tour performances (especially with the “Zurich Ballet’s calling card” – Bach’s “Goldberg Variations”) in dozens of countries – on major stages in Germany, France, Spain, Great Britain, Russia, Japan, Canada, South Africa, China, and others with consistently sensational success. “Berliner Kurier” called the pianist’s performance in 2001 at the Berlin Deutsche Oper “a true fireworks display at the piano!”

The recording of the “Goldberg Variations” reached number 2 in the Swiss classical charts in 1997, and “Le Figaro” called it “a super recording!” The next disc “Botvinov Plays Rachmaninoff” was named “Disc of the Month” in Switzerland in 2002.

The pianist has participated in numerous international festivals, including the Chopin Festival in Poland, Zurich Festspiel. At the “Murten Classics 2003” festival, he was “Artist in Residence,” performing in 8 concerts with different programs.

Botvinov performs with leading orchestras in Europe. Among the major tours are performances in Germany and Belgium with the Royal Flemish Orchestra, and a tour of China with the renowned Zurich Chamber Orchestra. Each concert of the Asian tour in 2007 (Hong Kong, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Singapore) ended with standing ovations. A video of the performance of Rachmaninoff’s “Elegy” from the 2000 Taipei Philharmonic Hall became an internet hit with over 180,000 views on YouTube.

The new revolutionary project for the classical world, “Bach. Reloaded,” combines seemingly incompatible cultural spheres – the pinnacle of European music “Goldberg Variations” by Bach with the oriental rhythms of the famous Turkish percussionist Burhan Öçal, based on ancient Sufi traditions. The European premiere of “Reloaded” was a sensational success at the Grand Hall of the Moscow House of Music (2011), followed by performances in Paris, Zurich, Basel, Montreux Jazz Festival, Istanbul Film Festival, Kiev, and Odessa.

Alexey Botvinov, together with the famous musicologist and Nobel Committee music expert M. Kazinika, created the largest television music-educational project in modern Russian history, “Free Flight”: 56 television films were broadcasted on nationwide Russian TV channels, presenting an analysis of hundreds of musical works from the last three centuries. An analogous radio project by Botvinov and Kazinika has been running in “non-stop” mode on Russian state radio “Orpheus” for 4 years now.

• Initiated by Botvinov in 2008, the project “Visual Reality of Music” combines piano music with video clips created live during the concert by young VJs. Performances of this project in Moscow and Donetsk, open-airs in Kyiv and Odesa, gathered an unprecedentedly large number of spectators for Ukraine (more than 10,000 people), and were widely covered in domestic media.
• In 2009-2010, Alexey Botvinov served as the artistic director of the Odesa Opera and Ballet Theater on a voluntary basis. During this time, he initiated 2 successful premieres in modern European theatrical style – the ballet “Nureyev Forever,” where he performed a solo on the piano; and the opera “Turandot” in the production of the outstanding German director K. von Goetz. The premiere performances of the opera received positive reviews in leading professional opera publications in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Great Britain – for the first time in the recent history of opera in Ukraine.
• Created in 2011, the theatrical-musical project “The Scribe. Elegy” was Botvinov’s directorial debut; he also acted as the author of the play and set designer. The project is successfully running on the Odesa stage, and in December 2012, the German-speaking version of the play premiered with great success in Zurich.

Despite years of recognition abroad, Alexey Botvinov is a true patriot of his homeland, remains a citizen of Ukraine, and puts significant effort into realizing his ideas and plans in his homeland.

Official website: botvinov.com.ua

AUGUSTA YUSIONITE – violinist and co-founder of the Lithuanian string ensemble NICO (New Ideas Chamber Orchestra). The Swedish magazine “Blekinge läns Tidning” described her solo performance as “very impressive and world-class” (E. Norden, 2016). Augusta studied under Professor Boris Kushnir at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz (Austria) and under Professor Helmut Zehetmair at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg (Austria).

• In 2012, she made her debut at the Graz Philharmonic, introduced by Austrian violinist Lydia Baych.
• In 2013, at the 20th International Johannes Brahms Chamber Music Competition, Augusta Yusionite received a special jury prize for outstanding performance of contemporary compositions (G. Gelgotas. “Never Ignore the Cosmic Ocean”).
• In 2020, she performed with the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Gediminas Gelgotas with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra. The performance was recorded and produced by the Grammy-nominated “Baltic Mobile Recordings” on Lithuanian National Television and Radio, aired on LRT, and Lithuanian “National Philharmonic Television”. “This sincerity and strength, both physical and emotional, which she is blessed with, serves Augusta so wonderfully in her musical performance. It allows her to deeply immerse herself in the musical material, seeming as if she gradually withdraws from all physical reality during the performance, she almost disappears. It is such an engaging experience to witness, and it is exactly how she is able to draw that intense listener attention and bring every member of the audience into this precious musical world,” noted composer Gediminas Gelgotas after Augusta Yusionite’s performance with his violin concerto.

Augusta Yusionite has collaborated with prominent musicians: violinists Kristina Balanas, Marie Samuelsson, Mikhail Simonyan, Vilhelmas Čepinskis, trumpeter Ole Edvard Antonsen, cellist Vytovas Sondeckis, and pianist Per Lundberg. Since 2001, she has received numerous awards at various international competitions.