THE CONCERT BY MARTYNAS ŠVĖGŽDA VON BEKKER

You are warmly invited to a concert by Martynas Švėgžda von Bekker on Saturday, July 26, at 4 PM.

This solo violin program, dedicated to Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, will begin with works by Martynas Švėgžda von Bekker’s own teacher of polyphony—Johann Sebastian Bach—whose compositions he studied in Leipzig during his youth. According to Švėgžda von Bekker, he will perform six of the most beautiful movements from Bach’s three sonatas and three partitas for solo violin.

Andriy Shtoharenko’s Fantasy for Solo Violin, composed in Soviet Ukraine in 1968, will speak with lyrical folk song and dance motifs, wrapped in dense textures of virtuosic chords and passages.

The program will also feature Vytautas Barkauskas’s legendary five-movement Partita for Solo Violin, a work that has brought recognition to Lithuania abroad since the 1970s and is included among the most prominent 20th-century violin compositions performed in international competitions.

From his own cycle of 11 pieces titled Le son et la parole (“Sound and Word”), Švėgžda von Bekker will perform four movements: Leila’s Song, Nameless, Brief Flirt, and Butterfly, each dedicated to kindred spirits and friends around the world—Leila, Gogi, Ugnė, and Timmi.

The concert will conclude with Holy Fire, a piece Švėgžda von Bekker premiered in January this year in Anykščiai and now brings to Kaunas for the first time. It is dedicated to Romas Kalanta.

“My father, Algimantas Švėgžda, displayed only three images publicly in his home in Berlin—his parents Paulina (Eringytė) Švėgždienė and Jonas Švėgžda’s wedding portrait, a close-up of Vydūnas, and a photo of Čiurlionis standing en face, leaning on a chair. Over time, I understood the importance these images held for him. Čiurlionis was a guiding star to my father—a role model.

He donated a significant and important part of his creative legacy to the M. K. Čiurlionis Museum in Kaunas. Every time I return here, I feel at ease, safe—as if I’m home.

Čiurlionis is our—Lithuania’s—gateway to the world! Let’s keep that gate wide open!” – says violinist Martynas Švėgžda von Bekker, introducing the concert.

This concert is part of the event series accompanying the exhibition "From Amber to the Stars. Together with M. K. Čiurlionis: Now and Then"  at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art.

The event is open to the public and will be filmed and photographed. By atending the event you agree to be featured in photographs and videos of the event and are informed that these photographs and videos may be made public.