This slogan will accompany and give meaning to the 30th musical summer in Pažaislis. The three-month-long Pažaislis Music Festival will begin on May 31. This year’s program will symbolically include thirty concerts. For the first time, the concerts will take place at the historic Owl Hill and Ąžuolynas Library. Eight concerts will be free of charge. The festival events will also take place in Jieznas, Prienai, Žiežmariai, Rietavas, Birštonas and Jonava.
While the festival is delighted by the returning audience, the members of which raise their children – the future concertgoers – here, each year it is attended by people who are touched by its music for the first time. And how do the participants interpret the motto of the jubilee music festival?
Cellist and conductor David Gering
“Rostropovich drilled it into me, ‘When you step onto the stage – it’s a celebration, the most beautiful moment of your life. And it doesn’t matter how many people are in the audience.’ That’s what I live by.”
Pianist Petras Geniušas
“If music has known you once, you are always happy. Music never ends, runs dry, or betrays. I believe that music is infinite; through it you get to know and feel the whole Universe.”
Violinist Dalia Kuznecovaitė
“If music has known you once, you are blessed to be able to touch upon – even if with your fingertips – what is eternal, what lifts you above everyday life and gives a deeper meaning to your existence.”
Singer Jurga Šeduikytė
“The effect of music for me is similar to the principle of mirroring. Music is only as meaningful to the listener as it reflects his or her inner issues, states and feelings. One of the most memorable moments in a concert is when we sing together with the audience. The performance of a song together is always followed by a pause of co-creative joy. For me, this is a prime example of how music creates a sense of togetherness between people, awakening a sensitive listening that helps several hundred people to sing with one voice. I am very happy to witness this.”
Soprano Aušrinė Stundytė
“Music is like air. It surrounds us from the very first moment in this world: the lullaby of our mother, the radio in the kitchen, the first concerts in kindergarten for our parents. It is so natural that we often don’t even notice it – just like the air we breathe.
It is only when the air suddenly runs out, when we start to suffocate, that we feel with every cell in our body how precious and necessary it is. And so it is with music. Have you ever tried to imagine a world where it suddenly disappears? No melody, no rhythm – just the sound of cars and the meaningless noise of information. I could not live like that.
But music is not only a necessity; it is also a heady inspiration – like that first deep breath of sea air after a long car journey, like the scent of a rose you want to sink your whole soul into. That’s what a good concert or a favorite record played at full volume through the speakers makes me feel.
If music has known you once – it will never let you go.”
Pianist Mūza Rubackytė
“If music has known you once, it has touched your heart. It becomes your treasure, lifting you above the mundane and bringing you humanity.
My grandfather, a mathematician and music lover, once said, ‘Everything that is the most beautiful is in music, you must devote yourself to it.’”
Violinist Karolina Beinarytė-Palekauskienė
“If music has known you once and revealed something in you that you didn’t know you had, all that remains is to cherish and not let go of this feeling, which deeply imbues the chosen path with meaning and captures the deepest depths of your being…”
Conductor Robertas Šervenikas
“If music has known you once – it will stay with you forever…”
