26 SGMF | SONG OF HOPE

Lithuania’s State Choir Vilnius

Conductor Artūras Dambrauskas

Programme: 

Donatas Zakaras, Rihards Dubra, Ēriks Ešenvalds, Francis Poulenc, Vaclovas Augustinas, Felix Mendelssohn

We will welcome our guests from Lithuania on the 25th August at the Stirniene St. Laurent Roman Catholic Church, inviting audiences to the 130th birthday memorial event for Bishop Boļeslavs Sloskāns. After becoming a priest and bishop, Bishop Sloskāns’ life soon converted into a path of suffering and torment, and he endured 17 years of duress and torture in Siberia under false accusations. After his release, when the bishop was exchanged for a Russian prisoner, Sloskāns worked as a professor at the Theology Faculty at the University of Latvia, and after the Second World War he moved to Belgium. Those who met the bishop were deeply impressed by his true holiness. Bishop Sloskāns radiated peace, humility, simplicity and deep love. At the end of 2004, Pope John Paul II issued a decree on the heroism of Bishop Sloskāns’ virtues, a step towards being declared venerable, and Sloskāns’ beatification process continues in Rome. In the concert dedicated to the memory of the venerable bishop, Lithuania’s State Choir VILNIUS under their Artistic Director Artūras Dambrauskas will perform pieces by Mendelssohn, Poulenc, Augustinas, and Latvian composers Ešenvalds and Dubra.

Free entrance.