22 years - a lot or a little? If we were talking about a person, we would say that he is still very young, but the twenty-second edition of a professional music festival is a solid experience, a long-standing tradition.
Since 2002, the International Song Country Music Festival in Alytus has occupied a firm position on the cultural map of Southern Lithuania. The geography of the festival reaches not only European countries, but has expanded to the USA, South Africa and other distant countries. However, no matter how far one looks, concerts by musicians from the Dzūkija region have always been a very important part of the programme. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
A conversation about sentiments for Alytus, the festival and music with Karolis Variakus, one of the most prominent conductors of the younger generation of Lithuanians working in Alytus, and Daiva Martikonyte, the director of the youth symphony orchestra "Svajonė" of the Alytus Music School.
– Karoli, tell us how and where did your musical journey begin?
- My musical journey began at the Biržai Music School, from the age of 4 to 13 I played the violin, then, in the sixth grade, I enrolled at the Mikolas Konstantinas Čiurlionis School of Arts, majoring in the violin, where I studied up to the 11th grade. While visiting the Opera and Ballet Theatre, I became fascinated and interested in conducting and wanted to try this art. I liked it very much, so I switched from violin to conducting, then I entered the Academy of Music and Theatre, met Professor Juozas Domarkas, attended his lectures, and completed my Bachelor's and Master's degree under his guidance. All the time I was studying conducting, my path was connected with modern experimental music, and it continues to this day. In my third year, my friend Dominykas Digimas and I founded the contemporary music ensemble Synaesthesis, and I was its conductor for a decade until December last year.
- You are from Biržai, you studied and worked for many years and now you are working in Vilnius again, how did Alytus appear in your biography? What memories does this period evoke?
- I worked at the Alytus School of Music, I was the conductor of the youth symphony orchestra "Svajonė", and I spent a wonderful six years there, and this job was the beginning of my career as a conductor and a person. I met many bright people while working in Alytus, one of them being Daiva Martikonytė, as I call her, my second mother, who took care of me at the beginning of my difficult journey and work in Alytus. I also have many of the most beautiful personal memories of Alytus, of the people, of the pupils. I always remember with a kind word all the management of the Music School, who allowed me to do what I was interested in: to give lectures in my field of interest, to do all the activities that made up my personality at that time, to have the opportunity to express myself and share my knowledge with the students and the Alytus community. I also played many times in Alytus with the ensemble Synaesthesis. Alytus remains in my memory as a place where I developed as a performer and a personality.
– Dainava Country Music Festival, what was the beginning of your friendship with this festival?
- When I was working at the Music School with Svajone, I had to conduct at festival concerts every year. Another festival-related memory that sticks in my mind is the concert organised by Algirdas Verbauskas, where we performed Algirdas Martinaitis's "Altar of Mercy", with an orchestra specially created for the festival, which I had to lead and conduct, and I met a lot of people I didn't even know were from Alytus.
- This year you will perform at the festival with the Lithuanian Symphony Wind Orchestra, can you briefly intrigue the audience about what will make this concert special?
- I will be returning to the festival after a break of a few years, with the Lithuanian Symphony Wind Orchestra invited by Klaudia Aleksandravičiūtė, and I am delighted to be back with a very interesting programme, Zappa Shake. Frank Zappa is an Italian-American, his grandparents were economic immigrants to America, and his whole family is from Sicily. The Zappa programme is an attempt to cover the totality of his personality, his influences, because he was not only a composer, he was many things. He was a manager, head of several publishing companies, founder of more than one band, guitarist, great performer. I wanted to show the broader context, what inspired him as an artist, what he was interested in. Edgard Varèse and Igor Stravinsky are the main composers who have left a big imprint on his work. When Zappa was 15 years old, he received $3 from his mother as a present (a lot of money in those days), and he looked everywhere for Varèse's recordings for brass band; he managed to find it for $5, negotiated down to $3 and bought it. Zappa listened to those recordings all the time, he had a dream of meeting Varèse. The influence of this composer can be clearly heard and felt in his music - sonic similarities, contexts, even quotations. The influence of Stravinsky, another composer Zappa likes, is felt in the rhythmic structure of the works. The concert will feature E. Varèse's Hyperprism for large percussion ensemble with winds, and an excerpt from Stravinsky's Symphony for Winds. The aim of the programme is to show what Zappa learned from as an author and to bring it together tastefully.
- Your wish for the festival audience.
- I very much hope you will come and hear it. After our first premiere in Vilnius in 2023, people asked where else they would ever hear this programme. And I know that people will come even from Vilnius to see this concert in Alytus, so I would like to invite Alytus residents not to miss it, because we have put a lot of our heart into this programme, and the content is very organically fulfilled.
- Daiva, when the festival programme is being put together, it is as if there is no question that there will be a concert by Svajonė. What does the Dainava Country Music Festival mean to your orchestra?
- The festival is an integral part of the cultural life of Alytus. "For Svajona, the invitation to participate in the professional music festival is a very important appreciation. In 2008, Vidas Simanauskas and Viktoras Gerulaitis, the directors of the festival, invited the orchestra for the first time to perform at the festival. We realised that they trusted us. After the first concert, we also received real professional attention: in 2009 and 2010, Svajone was conducted by National Prize winner, conductor, Professor Juozas Domarkas. Since then, Professor Domarkas has been following and supporting the orchestra's activities with special affection. At the right moment, he delegated to us his excellent student conductors, Karolis Variakojis and Vytautas Kiminis. That is why we love the Song Country Music Festival so much, we are grateful to its organisers and we try to support it as best we can. In 2015, when the festival mysteriously didn't get any funding at all, we organised a concert, which was the only one, but it was a Dainava Country Music Festival concert, to keep the festival going.
- Can you remember how many times you will be appearing at the festival? What will be special about your programme this year?
- Since 2008, we have played every year except the pandemic year - this will be our 16th concert at DŠMF! On 18 June, we will perform our latest programme "Music as Cinema", which is a particular favourite of our audiences. The visuals were created by Kęstutis Krivas. The programme has already been performed 9 times in Alytus, once in Seiriju, and fragments of it have aroused the audience's admiration at the Baltic Youth Symphony Orchestra Festival in Riga and Tallinn. With the support of the Alytus City Municipality's project initiative "Tau, Alytau", we are making a studio recording of this programme and are planning to release a vinyl record.
- You have performed in many different countries, on many different stages, but isn't it the case that your hometown is the place you love to perform? If so, how would you describe the audience in Alytus?
- We are loved in Alytus, our teachers, friends and families are here. The fans and supporters of the orchestra are a huge community here, who not only applaud us at concerts, but also support our projects. The most impressive example is the opening of the Baltic Youth Symphony Orchestra Festival in Alytus!
- And your invitation - what kind of listener should come to hear the concerts of the Dainava Country Music Festival?
- The Song Country Music Festival has its own audience. And yet, I am most happy to see the "dreamers" and other students of the Music School at its concerts. Exceptional concerts! A wonderful start of summer with great music!