In December, the archive of the Arvo Pärt Centre received a priceless addition when Maaja Rumessen, the widow of the pianist and musicologist Vardo Rumessen, gave a box full of valuable archive materials to the Arvo Pärt Centre.
This box contains personal materials, notebooks, concert programmes and newspaper cuttings related to Arvo Pärt’s work, dated up to 1980, when the composer was forced to emigrate from the Soviet Union.
“These documents are absolutely priceless for us – the composer’s correspondence and personal notes from that period are particularly fascinating. We are greatly indebted to Vardo and Maaja Rumessen for having kept that material all these years, and for it to have now reached our Centre,” said Anu Kivilo, the Managing Director of the Arvo Pärt Centre.
The archive staff will be examining these valuable documents further, and they will be stored in the archive of the Arvo Pärt Centre.
We are very grateful for this precious gift!
The composer Arvo Pärt and the Arvo Pärt Centre
