Several events are taking place all over the world in honour of Arvo Pärt in his 80th year. Universal Edition will be collecting upcoming performance dates in a special blog.
Here is a brief summary of the intense calendar of events.
JANUARY
- On 23 January, the Arvo Pärt Centre presented it’s first book, “In principio. The Word in Arvo Pärt’s Music” in the hall of Estonian Academy of Sciences. The book brings together the texts of Arvo Pärt’s works with English translations.
- From 28 January to 1 February, the ensemble Vox Clamantis gave several concerts on a renowned festival “La Folle Journée“ in Nantes, France, where Arvo Pärt’s “Passio” was performed along the works by F. Liszt and J. S. Bach.
FEBRUARY
- The Ash Wednesday celebrations will take place in Germany on 18 February, under the title “Aschermittwoch der Künstler” (“Ash Wednesday of Artists”), where many concert programmes in Cologne under the conductor Richard Mailänder will include the works of Arvo Pärt.
- In the end of February and beginning of March, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir with Tõnu Kaljuste gave three a cappella concerts in US, celebrating Arvo Pärt’s 80th and Veljo Tormis’s 85th birthday as well as the 150th anniversary of Jean Sibelius. Together with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, the same musicians performed “Adam’s Lament” at the 2015 National Conference of the American Choral Directors Association in Salt Lake City a few days earlier.
MARCH
- On 2 March,The Tallis Scholars released a new album featuring Arvo Pärt’s choral pieces as a tribute to the composer in his 80th year. The album called “Tintinnabuli” is the ensemble’s first recording of Arvo Pärt’s works. In the end of March, another album with Arvo Pärt’s music was released with Bavarian Radio Choir and Munich Radio Orchestra conducted by Peter Dijkstra. Read more
- In March, important concerts will take place in Spain:
· In Barcelona, the Palau de la Musica will organize a weekend that will review the essential parts of Arvo Pärt’s vocal pieces performed by the Latvian Radio Choir and Catalonia choirs, while the works of Arvo Pärt will be the focus of the concert house throughout the entire concert season.
· In Madrid, the Spanish National Orchestra will perform three concerts with Arvo Pärt’s music under the Finnish conductor John Storgårds, and the Spanish National Choir with the same orchestra will perform “Carta Blanca a Arvo Pärt” with Tõnu Kaljuste. Also here, Pärt’s music is in focus through the entire concert season. - On 31 March, the Choir of Westminster Abbey with soloists and Chroma ensemble conducted by James O’Donnell will present “Passio”
APRIL
- On 16 April, the “New York Live Arts” festival will present an entire day of Arvo Pärt, where events under the title “Arvo Pärt: Journeys in Silence”, which include lectures and music as well as a screening of the documentary “24 Preludes for a Fugue” have been curated by Peter Bouteneff from St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, and composer, musician and artist Laurie Anderson among others. St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS) press will present a new book by Peter Bouteneff “Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence”. Read more
MAY
- On 7 May 2015, the exhibition “Tabula rasa”, a selection of submissions of the design contest for the Arvo Pärt Centre will be opened at the Budapest Centre of Architecture FUGA, Hungary. The exhibition is part of series events held in Hungary to celebrate Arvo Pärt in his 80th year. The series are organized by the Estonian Institute in Hungary. Read more
In addition to the exhibition, the Hungarian Radio Choir will give a concert with works of Arvo Pärt and Péter Zombola in FUGA centre on 22. May. And since February, the Estonian Institute in Hungary is organizing a series of cinema events presenting films, where Arvo Pärt’s music has been used.
- On 9 and 10 May Arvo Pärt’s 80th birthday will be celebrated in Stockholm with a festival dedicated to the composer. The Swedish Radio Choir and Stockholm Sinfonietta will perform a Pärt recital in the Engelbrekt Church under Tõnu Kaljuste on 9 May and under Peter Dijkstra on 10 May. In the afternoon of 9 May, a Stockholm Sinfonietta ensemble along with organ player Bengt Eklund will present a concert in the same church featuring chamber music by Pärt. The concerts are both included in the programme of the Swedish Radio’s concert hall Berwaldhallen.
- On 12 May, the premiere of “Adam’s Passion”, a production based on Arvo Pärt’s music by one of the most prominent US directors of the experimental theatre, Robert Wilson, will take place in Tallinn. Considered one of the largest projects of the Year of Music 2015 in Estonia, four performances will take place at the Noblessner Foundry. Estonian National Broadcasting and one of the most well-known producers of music films in Europe, Accentus Music, will also work together to produce two films entitled “Adam’s Passion” on the basis of this collaboration between Pärt and Wilson – a film of the concert and a documentary to be screened via TV and cinema programmes in Autumn 2015.
- On 19 May, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra with Tõnu Kaljuste will present an Arvo Pärt recital at the Berlin Concert House as part of the Estonian President’s official visit to Germany.
- The same musicians under the conductor Kristjan Järvi will also perform at the festival Vale of Glamorgan in Wales, where Arvo Pärt is one of the two focal composers this year.
JUNE
- Nominating Arvo Pärt as Featured Composer at the MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra has resulted in a number of his works being included in the programme of the orchestra’s current season. The most important concerts will take place on 13–14 June in Magdeburg St John’s Church and Leipzig Gewandhaus, where under Kristjan Järvi “Swansong” and “La Sindone” as well as “Fratres” and “Passacaglia” with violinist Anne Akiko Meyers as soloist, will be performed.
JULY
- From 10 to 12 July Arvo Pärt’s music will be performed by Vox Clamantis at an exhibition by Gerhard Richter, which takes place as part of the Manchester International Festival. A new painting by the artist, dedicated to Arvo Pärt, will be presented there. Arvo Pärt’s works will also be performed at the festival by the chamber orchestra Manchester Camerata, whose concert will take place on 12 July.
AUGUST
- On 1 August, a recital entitled “Arvo Pärt Retrospective: fifty years of vocal music” will take place under the auspices of the European Church Music Festival. Pärt’s a cappella works from 1963 to 2008 will be performed by the Theatre of Voices conducted by Paul Hillier in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany.
- On 25 August, the 5th Arvo Pärt Centre Film Evenings will open with a world premiere of the full length documentary about Arvo Pärt “Even if I Lose Everything”, directed by Dorian Supin.
- On 29 August, a concert dedicated to Arvo Pärt will take place at the Baltic Sea Festival. Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra will perform under Tõnu Kaljuste at Stockholm Berwaldhallen performing all four of his symphonies as well as “Swansong”. A week later the same works by the same performers can also be enjoyed at the Nargenfestival.
SEPTEMBER
- At the end of August and the beginning of September, the composer’s birthday will be celebrated by a month long series of Pärt Festival concerts taking place as part of the Nargenfestival.
- In September, Cappella Amsterdam under the baton of Daniel Reuss and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta under Candida Thompson will celebrate Arvo Pärt’s birthday with a festival featuring five composer concerts in different towns in Holland. Those concerts also mark the 10th anniversary of Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, a renowned concert hall in Amsterdam.
- From 19 to 20 September, Paavo Järvi will conduct the Orchestre de Paris during the Arvo Pärt weekend in the recently inaugurated Paris Philharmonie concert hall.
OCTOBER
- On 6 October, the Estonian Public Broadcasting and the Arvo Pärt Centre will present a CD with Arvo Pärt’s children’s songs performed by Radio children’s song studio. The CD will present well-known pieces side by side with several songs found only on the archive shelves today. The choir and instrumental ensemble are conducted by Kadri Hunt.
- On 9 to 11 October Arvo Pärt’s 80th birthday will be celebrated in Hague with a festival dedicated to the composer. The New European Ensemble, the Kamerkoor Kwintessens, Raoul Boesten and others will perform more than 20 pieces by the composer at Den Haag Grote Kerk.
- On 21 October, the Arvo Pärt Centre together with Universal Edition will present “Songs from Childhood” at the renowned Dussmann KulturKaufhaus in Berlin. Read more
- From 22-24 October, the eight edition of the contemporary music festival „Nostalgia“ in Poland, Poznań will be entirely dedicated to the music of Arvo Pärt. Read more
- On 23 October, King’s College Choir conducted by Stephen Cleobury will perform “Passio” at King’s Place in London.
NOVEMBER
- On 13 November the laureates for the PÖFF Lifetime Achievement Award were announced at the opening ceremony of the 19th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) at the Nordea concert house. This year, it was awarded to the composers Veljo Tormis and Arvo Pärt for their large creative contribution in cinematography. Read more
DECEMBER
- From 29 November to 13 December the Cello8ctet Amsterdam will give five concerts celebrating Arvo Pärt’s 80th birthday. The arrangements for cello ensemble “Psalom”, “Silouan’s Song”, “Solfedšo”, “Summa”, “O-Antiphonen” and “Missa brevis” will be performed.
- On 10 December a new work by Arvo Pärt will première in Vienna – “Kleine Litanei” created for a cappella mixed choir. The piece was created in October 2015, on the commission of the Wien Museum for the reopening of St Virgil’s Chapel in Vienna. At the ceremonial opening night “Kleine Litanei” will be performed by the Arnold Schoenberg Choir and conductor Erwin Ortner, to whom the piece is dedicated. Read more
The list of events is being constantly complemented. You can view the list of performances here.