Ingrida
Alonderė

There are concerts you come to listen to. There are concerts you attend just to see how things will unfold. And then there are those that quietly remove you from the present and place you somewhere you did not plan to return to. This was one of those. I am sitting in the hall. Elgar begins. And suddenly I am no longer here. I am back in 2013. Bachelor exam. Mixed choir. A score in my hands. Inside — panic trying very hard to look like concentration. Back then, I conducted Elgar with a mixed choir. Miškinis — with a women’s choir. Not the same pieces, just the same composers. Thirteen years later, I am sitting on the other side of the hall. No score. No responsibility. Only memory. Music has a long memory. Sometimes longer than we do.

This was not a random audience. This was a room full of people who know what a choir is. Who have been in one. Who maybe still are. People who recognise conductors, repertoire — sometimes even each other’s voices. At some point it felt like half the hall could simply walk onto the stage and it would make perfect sense. Not an audience. A community.

An important detail — The Black Knight was performed in Lithuania for the first time. And it did not arrive quietly. This is early Elgar — still full of lyricism, even a kind of spring-like naivety — but already reaching toward something much larger. Almost a symphony for chorus and orchestra. Large form. Narrative weight. An orchestra that carries, not accompanies. A choir that tells, not decorates. Two choirs. Orchestra. A lot happening at once. And somehow — it works. Not because everything is perfectly together, but because everyone knows what they are doing. Perhaps even a little too well. There were moments when the shared breath slipped, when it was no longer entirely clear whether everyone was still in the same piece or already in their own interpretation. And yet — it held.

Also: it was hot. Very. You could see it in faces, in bodies, in the way phrases were carried to the end. And I sat there thinking: yes, I know this feeling. Kongresų rūmai. Standing on stage. Thinking not only about intonation, but about survival. A choir is not just sound. It is physics.

And then it happened. I hear: ir pasprink. ir pasprink. Wait. What? “Roses in the spring, roses in the spring…” Too late. Elgar disappears. Lithuanian phonetics takes over. I tried to return. I really did. It did not work. Sometimes language decides to live its own life. And suddenly the most serious piece becomes deeply personal. Sorry.

The second half — Light Mass. And everything shifts. Percussion. Bass guitar. Accordion. Piano. Jazz. Rock. Liturgical text. And you sit there wondering: where am I? A church? A concert hall? A jazz club? Or some very Lithuanian in-between state? This version — the first with symphony orchestra. A new arrangement. And you could feel it. At times rich and expansive. At times almost too much. As if the music itself was negotiating its identity. And then suddenly — it clears. And what remains? The choir. There was a very human moment. At times it felt like the orchestra itself was quietly asking: are we jazzing now, or are we still inside a serious piece? That slight hesitation — that micro-uncertainty — was strangely beautiful. Because maybe there is no clear answer.

Tadas Motiečius, Gediminas Stepanavičius, Linas Būda, Justė Šilaitė — they seemed to exist in a different reality. One where no one rushes, no one counts, no one gets tired. They were not performing. They were enjoying. And that matters. Because when people on stage enjoy what they are doing, it spreads. And when they do not — that spreads too. This was the first case. And then — the moment.

Justė Šilaitė. Butterflies in her hair. A face that says: I am exactly where I want to be. She does not just play. She lives inside the music. Next to her — a very serious double bassist. Focused. Professional. And then slowly — a smile. Relaxation. Involvement. That tiny moment when a musician realises: this feels good. That was the most beautiful scene of the evening.

How beautifully Miškinis conducts. No excess. No demonstration. Just clarity, calm, precision. I watched and thought: I could never do that. And then immediately realised — I probably just did not want to enough. Which explains everything.

This concert was not perfect. But it was alive. It had heat. Fatigue. Beautiful moments. Slight instability. A bit of jazz. A bit of Elgar. A bit of ir pasprink. Butterflies. And a lot of humanity. And somehow what remained was not the music. But the feeling. That I have been there before. And that music still knows how to bring me back.

P.S. The choral world is so small that sometimes it feels like we have all sung the same piece. Just in different years.