Arvo Pärt: Ideascapes

On October 17–18, 2025, the Arvo Pärt Centre in Laulasmaa, Estonia will host the international research conference Arvo Pärt: Ideascapes. With its intentionally broad thematic scope, we invite scholars from various disciplines to explore and share ideas related to the musical and intellectual legacy of the Estonian composer, who celebrates his 90th birthday this year.

Arvo Pärt’s unique compositional style and music—bridging generations, cultural experiences, and social strata around the globe—provides fertile ground for diverse academic interpretations. Modernism and cultural memory, artistic creation and (auto)communication, and the creative process as translation are just some of the “ideascapes” reflected in Pärt’s work that continue to attract the attention not only of musicologists, creativity psychologists, and cultural historians, but increasingly also of philosophers, theologians, and cultural semioticians.

Scholars from Estonia, Finland, Austria, Sweden, France, and the United States will present at the two-day conference. The first day will focus on Arvo Pärt’s modernist and early tintinnabuli works, exploring questions related to stylistic history and cultural memory, Pärt’s dialogues with the music of Bach and Mozart, as well as his approach to text, and early reception of tintinnabuli music. The keynote speaker will be Christoph Wolff, one of the most esteemed scholars on Bach and Mozart and Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, with a lecture titled “Cultural Memory in Music: Reflections on Arvo Pärt’s Concertino Wenn Bach Bienen gezüchtet hätte…” Other speakers include musicologists Leopold Brauneiss (University of Vienna), Mark Tatlow (University of Gothenburg), Kerri Kotta (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (EAMT)), Anu Veenre (EAMT), Maarja Tyler (EAMT, Arvo Pärt Centre), and Toomas Siitan (EAMT, Arvo Pärt Centre).

The second day of the conference will delve into the philosophical, semiotic, and theological dimensions of Pärt’s oeuvre and, more broadly, of creativity and the creative process. Topics include the possible modalities of the sacred in music, the dynamics of textual creation, the translational nature of artistic work, and reflections on the resonances between Pärt’s artistic vision and the ideascapes of John Tavener and Juri Lotman. The keynote speaker will be Eero Tarasti, professor at the University of Helsinki, a distinguished musicologist and founder of existential semiotics, who will speak on “Arvo Pärt – philosophical and music historical approach to his music”. The programme also features presentations by theologian Peter Bouteneff (St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, New York), cultural semiotician Peeter Torop (University of Tartu), cultural historian Marek Tamm (Tallinn University), cultural journalist and essayist Joonas Hellerma (Estonian Public Broadcasting), and musicologists Marie Antunes Serra (University of Strasbourg) and Kristina Kõrver (University of Tartu, Arvo Pärt Centre).

Programme
October 18

Eero Tarasti (keynote speaker), University of Helsinki
Arvo Pärt – philosophical and music historical approach to his music

Peter Bouteneff, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, New York
1 + 1 = 1: Reflections from Theology on Tintinnabuli

Peeter Torop, University of Tartu
Semiotics of creativity: ante factum and post factum dynamics

Marek Tamm, Tallinn University
One Line, Infinite Meanings: Holistic Thinking in Arvo Pärt and Juri Lotman

Joonas Hellerma, Estonian Public Broadcasting
Blossoms from a Broken Spirit: Reflections on the Philosophy of Modernist Music and the Work of Arvo Pärt

Marie Antunes Serra, University of Strasbourg
Modalities of expressions of the sacred in Arvo Pärt’s and John Tavener’s vocal music in the late 1990s and early 2000s

Kristina Kõrver, Arvo Pärt Centre, University of Tartu
Arvo Pärt’s musical diaries as intersemiotic ideascapes in sound, word and image

The conference will be held in English and is open to all interested participants. Registration will open on 1 May 2025. The participation fee includes coffee breaks and lunches as well.

Early registration (until September 11, 2025):

• Two-day attendance – €50
• One-day attendance – €30

Late registration (after September 11, 2025):

• Two-day attendance – €60
• One-day attendance – €40

The first day of the conference will conclude with a chamber concert at the Arvo Pärt Centre. Tickets will be available via Fienta.

Registration HERE