News

Arvo Pärt’s Symphony No. 2 was completed in 1966, and although the exact date of completion cannot be ascertained from the archival documents, it was most likely written between March and September.

The President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has issued composer Arvo Pärt with the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. The award is in recognition of and gratitude to Arvo Pärt for his contribution to classical music and the use of German texts in many of his works. The order was presented by the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, Christiane Hohmann, at a gathering at the Arvo Pärt Centre today.

The Arvo Pärt Centre has awarded its second residency scholarship this year, which went to the Belarusian composer Volha Padhajskaya. The scholarship allows one artist to focus on their work at the centre for up to a month. Composer and organist Volha Padhajskaya studied musicology and has a master’s degree in organ and composition from

On 31 October and 1 November, Arvo Pärt’s a cappella choral piece "O Holy Father Nicholas" will premiere at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The work will be performed by the Artefact Ensemble, conducted by Grammy Award-nominated conductor Benedict Sheehan.

"Arvo Pärt. Out of Silence" by American theologist and musician Peter C. Bouteneff will be published in Estonian. The book presentation will take place on 23 October at 15 at the Arvo Pärt Centre accompanied by a lecture by the author on the theme of “Plurality in Unity: Trinity, Humanity, and Tintinnabuli”.

The Arvo Pärt Centre and the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre are holding an international research conference on 15–16 October 2021 at the Arvo Pärt Centre and on the web channel stream.arvopart.ee.

On 9 October at 15, the new documentary about Ukraine’s most famous composer Valentin Silvestrov will be screened at the Arvo Pärt Centre. Silvestrov has shared a lifelong common understanding as well as a friendship with Arvo Pärt; their creative journeys have also had several common threads. The Estonian premiere will feature the director of the film Sergi Bukovski and sound director Igor Barba.

On International Music Day, 1 October, a new event series, “Listening in”, will start at the Arvo Pärt Centre, focusing on consciously listening to a musical composition. We invite you to listen and hear the sounds that are born and fade in the music, the density and the sparseness, the horizontal and the vertical, the speed and the slowness, the richness and the quietness.

To celebrate the composer’s 85th birthday, the Arvo Pärt Centre – the composer’s personal archive and information and music centre in Laulasmaa – and the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre are holding an international research conference dedicated to Arvo Pärt’s work and the cultural context surrounding it. Registration is required and will begin on 30 August on the centre’s website.

We mourn the passing of a great Estonian poet and philosopher Jaan Kaplinski (22 January 1941 – 8 August 2021). Jaan Kaplinski and Arvo Pärt were friends of many years, their friendship dating back to the 1970s. Although as artists they took different paths, there were invisible threads and a shared sense of culture that continued to unite them – “the same sea in all of us”.

The Arvo Pärt Centre's film evenings “Pärt & Film”, taking place from August 13th to August 15th, exhibit the surprisingly rich and versatile film language of screen works in which Arvo Pärt's music is used.

This summer, a concert lecture using a new format will take place in co-operation between the Arvo Pärt Centre and the Järvi Academy, where participants of the course as well as the public can become acquainted with the history of Arvo Pärt’s works and selected archive materials. The internationally renowned Pärnu Music Festival brings together