News

60 years ago today, on 11 March 1961, Arvo Pärt’s Nekrolog for orchestra was performed for the first time in the Pillar Hall at the House of the Unions in Moscow, under the baton of Roman Matsov. The tumultuous story of Nekrolog proves the extent to which the reception and fate of a composition depends on the time and the place the work was written, and the impact a work can have on a composer’s entire future oeuvre.

Starting on 12 February, we welcome you to the audio-visual journey “Ansel”, in which the photographer Kaupo Kikkas addresses such themes as silence, solitude and man’s relationship with nature. At the core of this distinctly personal, yet existentially universal journey is the music of Arvo Pärt.

Triin Ojari's interview with Enrique Sobejano, the architect of the Arvo Pärt Centre. The interview was first published on 19 January 2021 in the newspaper Postimees.

Published by the Arvo Pärt Centre, the graphic novel about Arvo Pärt, Between Two Sounds, by artist and illustrator Joonas Sildre, is now available in German. The publishing house Voland & Quist, based in Berlin and Dresden, recently published Zwischen Zwei Tönen. Aus dem Leben des Arvo Pärt was translated into German by Maximilian Murmann.

Until now, scientific literature dedicated to Arvo Pärt’s work has been published mainly in the field of musicology, and more recently also in theology, but the new collection of articles Arvo Pärt: Sounding the Sacred can be considered an ambitious interdisciplinary publication that combines the discourses of different fields.

In September 2005, a 14-part radio programme about Arvo Pärt premiered on Klassikaraadio. Making it took a full year, and contributing to its completion was the composer himself, along with dozens and dozens of people appearing in the broadcast.

The Arvo Pärt Centre has published a book by Hieromonk Raphael (Noica), Conversations in a monastery, that is based on public talks given by Fr. Raphael at the monastery of St. John the Baptist in Essex, England. The transcripts of Fr. Raphael’s talks can be considered as an introduction to the spiritual heritage of St. Silouan the Athonite and St. Sophrony the Athonite.

Irena Veisaitė, an outstanding Lithuanian literary and theatre scholar, the long-standing President of the Open Society in Lithuania Foundation, lecturer and theatre critic, has passed away. Arvo Pärt: “Dear Irena, my little musical dedication to your daughter – Für Alina – is the seal of our unity and love which will always keep us connected.”

The Spanish architects and the Arvo Pärt Centre have collaborated to publish a book of photographs and essays titled Arvo Pärt Center & Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos: A Common Denominator. The book is published by the German architecture publishers ArchiTangle. The presentation at 3pm on 7 December 2020 will be live streamed from the Arvo Pärt Centre via the Estonian Public Broadcasting culture portal.

The world premiere of Arvo Pärt’s Für Jan van Eyck will take place on 22 September in Ghent, Belgium. The initiative for creating this piece came from the Belgian choir Collegium Vocale Gent, and it was commissioned by the City of Ghent, who has dedicated the year 2020 to celebrating Jan van Eyck.

On 14 September in Novosibirsk (Russia), the world premiere of a new arrangement of Arvo Pärt’s La Sindone for violin and orchestra will be performed by the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra and the solo violinist Vadim Repin.

2010. aastal Pärdi pidunädalatest alguse saanud Pärdi päevadega tähistab Nargenfestival septembris Arvo Pärdi 85. sünnipäeva mitme teose uusversiooniga nii helilooja enda kui teiste seades, mis pole varem Eestis kõlanud.