Music Information Centre Lithuania has just published the latest issue of the magazine Lithuanian Music Link. This is an English-language publication which aims to explore and present Lithuanian musical culture or, to be more exact, its different (sub)cultures without the dead hand of academia to a foreign audience. The idea behind the content of this magazine is based on a broad understanding of culture and the arts, open to all genres, where equal attention is given to music that is classical and experimental, acoustic and electronic, improvisational and fixed or ideas which are, generally speaking, hard to classify. Here you will find the manoeuvres being made between the ‘do it yourself’ and the institutional, niche manifestations and larger pieces of culture, the past and the present, the local and the international.

Lithuanian musical culture is presented in the magazine as a multi-faceted and dynamic phenomenon which continues to expand intensively, is gaining international momentum and is an integral part of Western culture. On the other hand, quite often it is the spirit and vitality locally which has permeated the creative work and scenes, giving them distinctive qualities, highlighted here for a foreign audience. One of the texts has the title ‘From Vilnius to the World’, pointing up the direction of this publication. To put it another way, Lithuanian Music Link is one of the initiatives to promote Lithuanian musical culture internationally, made possible by financial assistance from the Association LATGA and the Lithuanian Composers’ Union.

There are nine texts by different writers in the nineteenth issue of Lithuanian Music Link. They explore the Y generation of Lithuanian music creators, who, immediately on graduating, went abroad and delved into various studies and creative practices; the local electronic music ‘tribe’, the members of which weave together connections between Baltic archaism and the post-industrial sound aesthetic; the historic era of free jazz, at the epicentre of which was the Ganelin-Tarasov-Chekasin Trio, which created a powerful post-GTCh magnetic field; and the multiple strands of today’s mainstream jazz being formed by the new generation.

In the magazine, readers will also find a portrait of Onutė Narbutaitė or perhaps what may be better termed an ode to this creative personality, written on the occasion of her birthday by a foreign conductor; a conversation with the performative music composer Rūta Vitkauskaitė; a piece on the ambitious tandem of the conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and the composer Raminta Šerkšnytė; an overview of non-institutional and ideological electronic music publishing; and, lastly, a witty analysis of etiquette at classical concerts, exploring trends of the last decade.

In preparing this issue of Lithuanian Music Link, Music Information Centre Lithuania worked closely with the authors of the texts: Ernestas Parulskis, Jurijus Dobriakovas, Rūta Skudienė, Laima Slepkovaitė, Edvardas Šumila, Povilas Vaitkevičius, Paulina Nalivaikaitė, Ugnius Babinskas, and Christopher Lyndon-Gee. The texts were translated by Romas Kinka, the design and layout are by Tomas Mozūra.

Free printed copies of the magazine will be distributed at various international music forums, through various public cultural diplomacy channels and Lithuanian cultural organisations that work actively with foreigners. All the content will be published in English and Lithuanian on the Music Information Centre Lithuania webpage.

Translated from the Lithuanian by Romas Kinka
Information from MICL