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About the festival
The early music festival “Banchetto musicale” (“Musical Banquet”) was held for the first time in autumn 1989. Since then, it has taken place annually, except for 1991 (when Lithuania was subject to economic and political blockade). The idea of the festival was born to Jūratė Mikiškaitė-Vičienė, founder and director of Lithuania’s first early music ensemble – the Renaissance music and dance ensemble “Banchetto musicale”, who served as the festival’s artistic director until 2003. In 2003, cellist Darius Stabinskas became the festival’s artistic director, and since 2024, Valerijus Jasiulevičius has been responsible for the festival’s concert programmes.
The “Banchetto Musicale” festival is an early music event with particularly long-standing traditions, unique even amongst the Baltic festivals. One could say that during the first decades of independence, it was the only place in Lithuania where early music was performed authentically; it was presented by the most renowned European and international musicians. The festival provided Lithuanian audiences with the opportunity to hear such ensembles as the European Union Baroque Orchestra, and the ensembles “Café Zimmermann”, “Ensemble Organum”, “Le Concert Brisé”, “Accordone”, “Tetraktys”, “Ensemble Vocale Veneto”, “Cantus Cölln”, “Ensemble 1700”, “Amarcord”, “Capella de Ministrers”, “Alia Mvsica”, and many others. The solo performances were particularly outstanding: the festival featured Paolo Pandolfo (viola), Edoardo Bellotti (organ), Matthew Spring (lute, viola da gamba), Stuart McCoy (lute, vihuela), Jacob Heringman (lute), cornetto virtuoso William Dongois, sopranos Sara Stowe and Lavinia Bertotti, and it was also attended by the Baroque and Renaissance dance experts Barbara Segal and Mary Collins from Great Britain.
The mediaeval, Renaissance, and Baroque music, with theatricalised programmes and staged performances could be seen and heard in “Banchetto musicale” festival. Among the particularly notable events, the following could be mentioned: a concert performance of C. Monteverdi’s opera “Orfeo”, which involved musicians from 13 countries, with the leading role performed by famous British tenor Nigel Rogers (1993); a joint programme by the ensemble “Hortus musicus” and “Banchetto musicale” dancers – the “Festa a ballo” celebration that took place in Naples in 1620, also was shown in Estonia and Finland (1993); a theatricalised banquet “The Fifteenth Century Feast”, organized by the “Banchetto musicale” ensemble together with choreographer Lieven Baert from Belgium (1994); the first performance in Lithuania of H. I. von Biber’s Requiem at St. John’s Church (1994); production of H. Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas” at the site of the former Palace of Grand Dukes of Lithuania (1995) and a ballet to G. Ph. Telemann’s suite “Water Music” (1999), both directed by choreographer and costume designer Jane Gingell from Great Britain; an Italian commedia dell’arte style performance “Festa Veneziana” (2000); a theatricalised Spanish Renaissance programme “Viva España” worked up with Dirkjan Horringa from the Netherlands; Euroradio concerts of “Discoveries” cycle “From the Braunsberg Organ Tablature” (2004), “Marco Scacchi—Student and Teacher” (2007), “Prince Vladislav’s Journey to Rome”, and “Music as Fisher of Souls”; production of O. Vecchi’s madrigal comedy “L’Amfiparnaso” (2007) and C. Monteverdi’s madrigal operas “Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda” and “Ballo delle ingrate” at Vilnius Theatre “Lėlė”. In 2009, when Vilnius became a European Capital of Culture, the festival’s organisers invited audiences to a year-long series of events called “Baroque Dialogues”.
The festival has also organised masterclasses led by Nigel Rogers, Hans Olav Gorset, Edoardo Bellotti, Claudine Ansermet, Alexander Puliaev, Rafael Palacios, Stefano Rossi, Olga Pasichnyk, and other distinguished early music performers.
The “Banchetto musicale” festival initiated formation of early music interpretation traditions in Lithuania, had an enormous influence on our young performers who had played at the festival (many of whom are now well known), and nurtured several generations of audiences who came to love early music.
