Arvo and Nora Pärt, along with the team of the Arvo Pärt Centre, commemorate the legendary director and artist Robert Wilson (1941–2025).
The two artists were kindred spirits, having first met in 2009 at a reception for Pope Benedict XVI in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican. Wilson had long admired Pärt’s music and proposed a collaboration. This extensive partnership culminated in 2015 at the Noblessner Foundry in Tallinn, where Wilson produced the musical work “Adam’s Passion” set to Pärt’s music. This production became one of the most significant events in Estonian musical life. Arvo Pärt specifically wrote the piece “Sequentia” for the production, dedicating it to Robert Wilson.
Pärt remarked that his collaboration with Wilson felt like “one breath, one fellowship of thought.” The composer’s musical diary from April 2015 contains these reflections: “I have always been fascinated by the truth that is hidden in the stasis of time. Truth is timeless, immortal. Like a kind of ‘still life,’ in which the formula of life can be read—energy, movement in apparent immobility. Robert Wilson knows this language perfectly.”
Robert Wilson was one of the greatest figures in contemporary theatre. He remained a leading figure on the international theatre scene from his breakthrough production of “Einstein on the Beach” (music by Philip Glass, 1976) until the end of his life. His stage works in the world’s top theatres and music festivals garnered significant attention. Wilson collaborated with many renowned artists, including Arvo Pärt. Most recently, in Milan this spring, a notable event featuring Michelangelo’s sculpture “Rondanini Pietà”, Robert Wilson’s light installation “Mother”, and Arvo Pärt’s “Stabat Mater”, performed by the ensemble Vox Clamantis, all presented together in the hall of the Spanish Hospital of Sforza Castle.