Vargonų Muzikos Festivalis

In 1999, in the Lithuanian city of Anykščiai, a 45-stop, 3-manual, 2,600-pipe organ was installed in the Church of St. Matthew the Apostle Evangelist, suitable for the performance of professional concert music. This instrument came to Anykščiai as a gift from England, St. Lawrence Baptist Church, operating in Southampton. This organ was built in 1925, and rebuilt in 1963 by the well-known organ building company Kingsgate Davidson & Co, operating in London and Kent. Previously, the church and the organ belonged to Catholics, but the church was transferred to the Baptist community. Circumstances later developed in such a way that such an organ became too large for the Baptist church, so it stood divided into two parts, and with the decrease in the number of parishioners, the Baptist church was no longer able to maintain a large organ at all, so it was replaced with an electric organ..., and the large organ was dismantled, transported to Anykščiai and installed there by organ masters Kornelijus and Modestas Karnaševičiai. Parishioners donated generously for the construction of the organ in Anykščiai, their names and surnames are written on the inside of the organ lid. According to the assessments of Prof. L. Digris and other specialists, the large Anykščiai organ is one of the best and most interesting in Lithuania, as an example of a post-romantic English style organ, having registers (voices) characteristic only of such organs. The festival has been held since 2000, but since 2014. The festival is organized by the Public Institution “Prasmingas garsas” (dir. Stanislovas Aglinskas), then the name, concept and program of the festival changed. The geography of its activities and performers expanded. It is one of the rare organ music festivals in Lithuania, where special attention is paid to solo organ music and young performers. Almost all of the young performers are laureates of international competitions and have already managed to distinguish themselves in international programs. In the organist's programs, you can also find works for two organs. Since there are two organs in the Church of St. Apostle Evangelist Matthew in Anykščiai and they are fully functional, this greatly enriches the programs and repertoire of the performers. The festival was one of the first to start live broadcasts of concerts from the organ balcony to the screen in front of the church. This gives the audience a unique opportunity not only to listen, but also to watch the performers play the organ. Some of the festival concerts are enriched with unique light and video installations. For the third year, a camp for young organists will be organized, the main curator and patron of which is prof. Virginija Survilaitė. Lecturers from foreign countries also participate. During the camp, they also participate in the festival programs. In addition to works by famous classical music composers, the festival also features premiere works of contemporary music written especially for this festival. Over the past 25 years, many organists from various countries have participated in the festival, from Poland - Józef Serafina, Julijana Gembalski, Karolis Niezgoda, Joanna Jaworowska, Dawid Naumczyk, Marek Smoczyński, etc., from Lithuania - Bernardas Vasiliauskas, Leopoldas Digrys, Virginija and Živilė Survilaitės. Rimvydas Mitkus, Jurgita Kazakevičiūtė, Gediminas Kviklys, Tomas Bakučionis, Mona Roždestvenskytė-Hartmann, Karolina Juodelytė, Aušra Motūzaitė-Pinkevičienė, Vidas Pinkevičius, Jarūnė Barkauskaitė, Virgilijus Barkauskas, from Ukraine - Svitlana Pozdnysheva, Stanislav Kalinin, from the Czech Republic - Ivana Michalovičová, František Vaníček, from the USA - Mitchell Miller, from Scotland - Andrew Forbes, from Great Britain - Jeremiah Stephenson, Huw Morgan, from Spain - Mar Vaque Mur, Aarón Ribas, from Norway - Gunnar Petersen-Øverlei, from the Netherlands - Maarten Wilmink, from Latvia - Simona Sunepa, Larisa Carjkova, Kristīne Adamaite, from Italy - Giorgio Reve