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Dear friends in Ukraine, dear colleagues, dear all fighting for your home at the price of your life. We bow before your bravery, bravery in the face of nearly unbearable suffering. We are with you as much as we are able to. All that is left to us is a lump in our throats and tears and prayers. Words have begun to lose their meaning. Forgive us!

In March, the famous contemporary music centre in Amsterdam, Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ will dedicate a one-week programme to Arvo Pärt’s music. Taking place from 22 to 27 March, Pärt Festival 2022 was originally scheduled for the spring of 2020 to celebrate the composer’s 85th birthday. The festival programme features renowned performers of Pärt’s music from the Netherlands, Estonia and elsewhere.

On February 27 at 17:00 in St. John’s Church in Tallinn, the “Author’s Hour” dedicated to Arvo Pärt’s music will begin. At this concert, for the first time in Estonia, Pärt’s choral work O Holy Father Nicholas, dedicated to the opening of the St. Nicholas Church, erected on the site of the destroyed twin towers in New York, will be performed. The concert will be conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste.

The year 2022 is celebrated as the Year of Libraries in Estonia, and therefore it is appropriate to take a look at the library at our centre. Although the Arvo Pärt Centre library is not large, it plays an important role in introducing Arvo Pärt’s heritage and thinking.

The Arvo Pärt Centre thanks and congratulates long-term supporters of the centre Reet and Väino Kaldoja, who received the title Friend of Culture of the Year at the award ceremony at the Kai Art Center today. Reet and Väino Kaldoja have supported the Arvo Pärt Centre since 2014 both through their company, Silberauto, and as private individuals.

For the second year, the Arvo Pärt Centre will award residency scholarships to offer artists the opportunity to dedicate themselves to their work at the Arvo Pärt Centre. This year, one scholarship is intended for a representative of the world of music and the other for a creative person working in another art form. The only application round this year will open on 17 January and the deadline for applications is 31 March.

The Hamburg edition of Arvo Pärt’s orchestral piece "Swansong" will be premiered on 5 and 6 December at the Elbphilharmonie Concert Hall in Hamburg. It will be performed by the Hamburg State Philharmonic Orchestra and Chief Conductor Kent Nagano, who commissioned this edition of the piece.

Arvo Pärt’s Symphony No. 2 was completed in 1966, and although the exact date of completion cannot be ascertained from the archival documents, it was most likely written between March and September.

The President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has issued composer Arvo Pärt with the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. The award is in recognition of and gratitude to Arvo Pärt for his contribution to classical music and the use of German texts in many of his works. The order was presented by the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany, Christiane Hohmann, at a gathering at the Arvo Pärt Centre today.

The Arvo Pärt Centre has awarded its second residency scholarship this year, which went to the Belarusian composer Volha Padhajskaya. The scholarship allows one artist to focus on their work at the centre for up to a month. Composer and organist Volha Padhajskaya studied musicology and has a master’s degree in organ and composition from

On 31 October and 1 November, Arvo Pärt’s a cappella choral piece "O Holy Father Nicholas" will premiere at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The work will be performed by the Artefact Ensemble, conducted by Grammy Award-nominated conductor Benedict Sheehan.

"Arvo Pärt. Out of Silence" by American theologist and musician Peter C. Bouteneff will be published in Estonian. The book presentation will take place on 23 October at 15 at the Arvo Pärt Centre accompanied by a lecture by the author on the theme of “Plurality in Unity: Trinity, Humanity, and Tintinnabuli”.