The Early Music Week: Women in Early Music, Baroque and Renaissance Dance, and Bach in the Underground Gallery
Today, the Early Music Week has started, a project that has transformed into a festival to commemorate the birthday of the Baroque music genius Johann Sebastian Bach.
“By the events of Early Music Week, we are trying to unveil a vast treasure of Early Music to the listener. We have invited LMTA students and teachers as well as 12 students and 5 teachers from foreign music schools to participate in Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) courses and deepen their knowledge of the Renaissance and Baroque repertoire, historical performance, and also uncover the beauty of old music performed at concerts open for the public,” says Beatričė Baltrušaitytė, one of the initiators of the Early Music Week, project coordinator and specialist of the LMTA Quality and Strategic Planning Department.
The Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre is joining an international initiative – The Day of Early Music – commemorated annually on 21 March by the European old music network REMA, and invites to celebrate the birthday of the Baroque music genius Johann Sebastian Bach.
The scheduled events include a lecture by musicologist Dr. Aleksandra Pister who speaks about the women and the music of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (20 March); an evening of the Renaissance dance where the Early Dance professional Edmundas Žička introduces the most prominent European court dances of the Renaissance period – the pavane and the branle. The dance night will be continued by Mantautas Krukauskas and Ignas Juzokas (22 March): these composers will perform live electronic music variations on the Baroque music themes.
On 21 March, an Early Music concert organised together with the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, the Early Music Week project partner, invites to listen to music in an area uncommon for concerts – the basement gallery and the ground-floor lobby of the Vilnius TV Tower.
“By joining the global initiative “Bach in the Subways”, we invite you to an Early Music concert organised in an unusual area – the Vilnius TV Tower, its underground gallery and the first-floor lobby where the works of J. S. Bach and his contemporaries will be performed by the
participants and teachers of the Erasmus+ BIP courses taking place at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre,” says project coordinator Beatričė Baltrušaitytė.
During the Early Music Week, LMTA students together with their peers from foreign higher music schools will take part in the Erasmus+ BIP courses cooperating with acclaimed Early Music performers and teachers Dr. Flavio Ferri-Benedetti (Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Switzerland), Lea Sobbe (Kunstuniversität Graz, Austria), Ieva Baltmiškytė (Muziekacademie Schaarbeek, J. Fiocco, Belgium).
The events of the Early Music Week culminate in the final concert hosted by the Museum of the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania. Here, the participants and teachers of the Erasmus+ BIP courses will perform the music by the Renaissance and Baroque composers, while Eglė Rudokaitė will play the harpsichord to demonstrate basso continuo, a technique typical of the Baroque period.
The Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre organises the Early Music Week together with partners: The University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (Austria), the Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Kraków (Poland), the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music (Latvia), and the National Museum of the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania.
The partner of the concert “Music in the Underground Gallery” is the Vilnius TV Tower. The Early Music Week events are free of charge.
