International conference places Arvo Pärt’s music in the broader context of contemporary spiritual life

On 17–18 October, the Arvo Pärt Centre will host the international research conference Arvo Pärt: Ideascapes, bringing together scholars from around the world to discuss the musical and intellectual legacy of the composer, who celebrates his 90th birthday this year. It is the second major international academic conference in Estonia dedicated to Pärt’s work, organised by the Arvo Pärt Centre and the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.

The two-day conference will feature researchers from various disciplines from Estonia, Finland, Austria, Sweden, France and the United States. The first day will focus on Pärt’s modernist and early tintinnabuli compositions, while the second day will explore philosophical, semiotic and theological perspectives on broader questions of creativity and the creative process.

“At this conference, we wanted to look beyond Pärt’s music itself, as we increasingly recognise him as a true visionary. The programme therefore takes a wide-ranging approach, covering themes from cultural history and collective memory to semiotic and philosophical interpretations that place Pärt’s music within the wider landscape of contemporary spiritual life,” said musicologist Toomas Siitan, a member of the conference’s organising committee.

Keynote speakers include Christoph Wolff, one of the world’s leading Bach and Mozart scholars and Professor Emeritus at Harvard University, and Eero Tarasti, Professor at the University of Helsinki, a distinguished musicologist and founder of existential semiotics. Other speakers include cultural semiotician Peeter Torop (University of Tartu), cultural historian Marek Tamm (Tallinn University, Estonian Academy of Sciences), musicologists Leopold Brauneiss (University of Vienna), Kerri Kotta (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre), Toomas Siitan (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Arvo Pärt Centre), Mark Tatlow (University of Gothenburg), Anu Veenre (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre), Marie Antunes Serra (University of Strasbourg), Kristina Kõrver (University of Tartu, Arvo Pärt Centre) and Maarja Tyler (Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, Arvo Pärt Centre), theologian Peter Bouteneff (St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, New York), and cultural journalist and essayist Joonas Hellerma (Estonian Public Broadcasting).

The first day of the conference concludes with a chamber concert, Dialogues in Music, featuring violinist Robert Traksmann, cellist Marcel Johannes Kits and pianist Sten Heinoja in the concert hall of the Arvo Pärt Centre.

See the conference programme and list of speakers HERE.

The previous international conference organised by the Arvo Pärt Centre and the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, titled Arvo Pärt: Texts and Contexts, took place four years ago, in 2021.

The conference is supported by the Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne, Anna Gustafson and the Estonian Ministry of Culture.