Jauna Muzika | History

Lithuanian version

Vilnius Municipal Choir
JAUNA MUZIKA

History

The JAUNA MUZIKA (Young Music) choir came into being in 1989.
From 1990 to 1996, it won 15 first prizes in various categories and six Grand Prix in 16 international choral competitions around the world.
1993 in Varna, Bulgaria, the choir was awarded the highest prize, the Grand Prix Europeo, in a competition organised by the International Federation of Choral Music. In 1994, Jauna Muzika became the choir of the Municipality of Vilnius.

Jauna Muzika was founded by the conductor and composer Remigijus Merkelys and the director Algimantas Gurevičius, who has been managing the choir ever since.
Since 1992, Jauna Muzika has been led by the conductor and composer Vaclovas Augustinas.

The members of the choir are professional musicians - graduates and students of the Lithuanian Academy of Music. Depending on the repertoire being performed, the number of the singers ranges from 24 to 50.
Jauna Muzika is a very active choir, and gives over 60 concerts at home and abroad every year.
The choir considers its mission to present an extremely diverse and valuable a capella choral repertoire. Requiring very high professional standards, this mission led the choir to achieve international recognition.

Alongside a capella works, the choir appears with Lithuanian chamber and symphony orchestras and, during numerous concert tours, with foreign ones, including the Tel Aviv Symphony Orchestra, the Israeli Camerata, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Ludwigsburger Schloßfestspiele Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Berlin Soloists, the Moscow Virtuosi, the St Petersburg Camerata, the Novosibirsk Camerata and Novosibirsk Chamber Orchestra.

The choir has been conducted by many masters of the baton, including Pinchas Steinberg, Wolfgang Gönenwein, Noam Sheriff, Frieder Bernius, Chifuru Matsubara, Peter Hanke, David Shallon, Nicholas McGegan, Anders Eby, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Vladimir Spivakov, Werner Pfaff, Simon Halsey, Hermann Max, Albert Hartinger, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Manfred Honeck, William Boughton, Murry Sidlin, Avner Biron, Johannes Prinz, Reinhard Goebel, and the Lithuanian conductors Saulius Sondeckis, Gintaras Rinkevičius, Robertas Šervenikas and Donatas Katkus.

The choir has given concerts with many celebrities of the music world: the cellist Mark Drobinsky, the singers Robin Blaze, Eva Ben-Zvi, Benno Schollum, Adam Zdunikovski, Anatoli Safiulin, the cantor Joseph Malovany, and famous Lithuanian singers, such as Virgilijus Noreika, Vladimiras Prudnikovas, Sigutė Stonytė, Judita Leitaitė, and Algirdas Janutas.

An important part of the activities of Jauna Muzika is representation of the Lithuanian choral art in foreign countries. Their concerts abroad have featured compositions by J. Gudavičius, J. Naujalis, Č. Sasnauskas, M.K. Čiurlionis, J. Gruodis, and by present-day composers, including O. Balakauskas, F. Bajoras, A. Martinaitis, V. Klova, B. Kutavičius, M. Urbaitis, V. Bartulis, N. Valančiūtė, O. Narbutaitė, V. Augustinas, R. Merkelys and G. Svilainis.

The choir has toured in Europe, China, Japan and Israel, appearing at the most famous concert halls, such as the Munich Philharmonic, the Suzan Dellal Center (Tel Aviv), the Fredric R.Mann Auditorium (Tel Aviv), the Haifa Auditorium, “Bimot” (Jerusalem), Festsaal Kulturpalast (Dresden), Ludwigsburg Theater im Forum, St Mathias Church (Budapest), Alte Oper (Frankfurt), the S. Rachmaninov Hall (Moscow), the Berlin Philharmonic Chamber Hall, the Berlin Festspiele Theater, and the Shanghai Opera House.

Jauna Muzika is a member of the International Federation of Choral Music. In 1999, in Rotterdam, the choir represented the Lithuanian choral art at the World Symposium on Choral Music, which takes place once in five years in different countries.

Over 14 years of its activities, the choir has built up a diverse and valuable repertoire, which includes a capella works by Bach, Vivaldi, Schütz, Brahms, Poulenc, Schönberg, Messiaen, Ligeti and Pärt, and large-scale compositions, such as Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, Messiah, Four Coronation Anthems and Psalm No. 109, Dixit Dominus, Bach’s Mass in B minor, Magnificat and cantatas, Verdi’s Requiem, Mozart’s cantata Davide Penitente and Requiem, Durufle’s Requiem, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Noam Sheriff’s Psalms of Jerusalem and Mehaye Hametim, Honegger’s Jeanne d’Arc and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. An exclusive part in the choir’s repertoire is occupied by Lithuanian composers’ works, which are often performed in concerts and festivals at home and abroad.

Besides giving concerts, the Vilnius Municipal Choir Jauna Muzika has originated a number of significant projects in Lithuania. Every year since 1995, Jauna Muzika has held workshops on choir conducting and interpretation led by the world’s leading choir conductors.
In the autumn of 1998, on the initiative of the choir, an international festival, Eternal Jerusalem, was held in the major concert halls of Vilnius - the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall, the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre and the Town Hall. The festival featured many outstanding Lithuanian and foreign performers performing with Jauna Muzika.
In 2000, together with the Vilnius Town Hall Festival, Jauna Muzika invited the lovers of baroque music to a concert series “English and French Baroque Music”, in which The King’s Consort from Great Britain and Il Seminario Musicale from France appeared, and, in 2001, to “The Days of German and Polish Baroque Music”, which featured Musica Antiqua Köln from Germany and Capella Gedanensis from Poland.
In 2002, the choir put on a series of five concerts, which was devoted to the rebuilding of the Vilnius Evangelical Lutheran Church and featured unconventional programmes of vocal and instrumental music.