Arvo Pärt 90

Pärt with one of the world’s leading choirs

Welcome to an atmospheric and beautiful opening concert with one of the world’s leading choirs, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. Under the direction of the legendary conductor and founder of the choir, Tõnu Kaljuste, they will perform selected works by the 90-year-old Arvo Pärt – one of our time’s most played contemporary composers. Pärt is an important and prominent composer of sacred music, and the program showcases the range of Pärt’s vocal music. Works such as Missa syllabica, Magnificat and Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen are written in his characteristic tintinnabuli technique – a form of minimalism where a simple, stepwise melody combines with an arpeggio of the tonic triad. However, since the beginning o the 21st century, Pärt has moved away from this style. We can hear examples of this in his works The Deer’s Cry and Dopo la vittoria. The concert concludes with an excerpt from Pärt’s most expansive choral work, Kanon Pokajanen. The text is a hymn to the light and to the metamorphosis that occurs between night and day, between prophecy and fulfilment, and between death and the immortal. Kanon Pokajanen is dedicated to the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and conductor Tõnu Kaljuste.