J.Skiotytė-Norvaišienė: high culture in Klaipėda should shine like a luxury watch on our wrist | Culture

Among them is Jurgita Skiotytė-Norvaišienė, who became the artistic director of the KKS repertoire at the beginning of the year, whose name is well known not only in the Lithuanian, but also in the foreign academic music and theater community. There is no doubt that the musicologist who has accumulated an impressive experience of cultural management and leadership in the country’s most famous cultural institutions will make a significant contribution to the institution’s comprehensive renewal strategy.

– New activity at KKS accompanies your work at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theater, where you head the theater’s artistic activity department and hold the position of deputy general director. It’s obvious – you don’t lack activities and challenges, so why did you agree to join the team from Klaipėda, even as a project?

– I won’t deny – the fact that I feel a lot of sentiments for Klaipėda was definitely not the last thing. This city is dear to me, I started my musical career here by studying at the conservatory, I worked at the Klaipėda State Musical Theater. Of course, I did not miss the Concert Hall, which was and remains one of the most important centers of academic music.

However, I probably first joined the KKS team driven by curiosity and a desire to apply more of my managerial than artistic experience, because I think that the people working here need a manager who would not impose his ideas on them, but would help reveal their strengths, abilities, and give them the necessary impetus . The concert hall has assembled an excellent team of professionals who have great potential. I believe that, if properly navigated, this potential will successfully contribute to the formation of the institution’s concert program.

– Perhaps the colleagues who help you navigate in new waters were one of the biggest discoveries for you?

– Of course, this is also an ongoing process. It is very interesting to watch people, their change. One of them is Dovilė Kirdaitė, a repertoire planning specialist who helps me. I was very surprised and impressed by her excellent academic taste, how many ideas she has, how deep she is in the city itself, how she understands its need and how she reveals herself more and more boldly. For my part, it is very important for me that all of us in the team can believe and trust each other’s understanding, taste, and vision of certain things.

– You recently joined the KKS Art Council – how do you assess its new faces?

– The Art Council is renewed every two years, so these are consistent changes. However, it used to be emphasized that people from the academic music field must necessarily enter this formation. Therefore, it is good that this attitude is changing, and today professionals from various fields successfully express themselves in the KKS Art Council – from politics to the private sector, such as the director of the MO Museum, independent music art expert Milda Ivanauskienė, who undoubtedly has a different vision and experience. Therefore, the wider the context, the more diverse the circle of people it will be, the healthier it will be for the institution.

– With what baggage of experience will you contribute to KKS’s ambitions to form a repertoire of the highest quality?

– Let’s start with the fact that I am both a music critic and a performer, a musician – this gives not only a theoretical understanding of what academic music is and what are the nuances of its performance, to understand how one interpretation of a piece differs from another, and so on.

In fact, it would be difficult for me to count all the diplomas I have today, starting with psychology studies and ending with the master’s degree in management at the ISM University of Management and Economics, which I deeply believe is very important when working with other people.

Of course, during the 25 years that I have been in the field of academic music, I have gained most of my experience working at the Music Support Fund, the Lithuanian National Philharmonic, the Klaipėda State Musical Theater and finally – the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatres. However, next to my main work, I always had additional projects and activities, from music education to the management of individual artists, including international experience. During recent activities, many acquaintances and joint work with the brightest stars of European concert halls and theaters have been established.

In addition, I am an active consumer of culture, who is no stranger to non-standard things in terms of genre, for example Pink, Coldplay or Ed Sheeran himself, because it is also an opportunity to expand my horizons. I am interested in how musicians of this level, professionals, work, comparing their enthusiasm with representatives of academic music.

– Can we expect that diversity and even wider horizons in the KKS repertoire? What changes, innovations, in general, await the audience?

– Of course, balance is very important. In cultivating the academic taste of the audience, we need to serve more than just serious dishes. However, the music “sweets” of a lighter genre must also have an appropriate time – festive December, other popular holidays of the year or summer time are perfect for that.

One of the peculiarities of KKS, which probably caught my eye first, is the abundance of festivals held here. However, in my view, they are strongly leveled and beg for some refinement, clarity on what program each of them is focused on, and ultimately how they could correlate with the overall repertoire of the institution. Therefore, it is very important to return to the origins and reassess what the original task was encoded in all those festivals.

When forming the repertoire, we also strive for a clear theme, a solid line connecting the entire content. The Concert Hall, which is in its 21st season, is going through a phase of renewal, changes, which I associate with youth and a kind of rebirth, renaissance. Therefore, in the upcoming season, we will pay a lot of attention to this line, starting with young performers and ending with works by composers who were created in their youth.

Another brilliant idea is to turn to the academic music of undiscovered countries. Let’s ask ourselves – what we know about the music of Iceland or Slovenia, after all, we have undiscovered creators in Lithuania as well. So why can’t the performers appearing on the KKS stage devote part of their repertoire to this kind of music?

Again, I would not like to see in my person a messiah who came and suddenly will save Klaipėda. She herself must want culture. Rather, my goal is to encourage people to want to come to the Concert Hall, see and hear what is happening here. And in this case, not only high-quality content is important, but also louder communication throughout Lithuania, which is still lacking today. That’s probably why it still often seems that in Vilnius it’s more of everything and that’s all there is to it fluent.

– Can you convince the skeptics that this is not the case?

– Of course, there are those great things, but the people of Klaipėda are too modest, for some reason they don’t brag about them very much. Even if it is ugly, inconvenient, modesty beautifies. But let’s stop being modest these days. We are not the only ones who need to know about what we are doing – if we don’t tell anyone, then who will?

Even if they are stars of the same scene, artists of the highest caliber – when they go to smaller cities, they know where they are going. Most of the time, they do it because of the personal friendship, as well as the special atmosphere, the understanding that they will educate, show people something that they may not have seen.

The artistic directors of KKS have also established friendships with musicians from various countries, world-famous performers have always willingly performed in the Concert Hall and, I am sure, will continue to do so successfully. However, probably my main wish would be for that star not to come anywhere else, not on the way to another Lithuanian city, but to Klaipėda. So that we have an undoubted uniqueness and that the same people from Vilnius, Kaunas and Panevėžys would like to come to such a concert.

– As for the reach of academic culture in the region – here KKS undoubtedly plays an influential role and devotes a lot of effort to make it even more important. But is the contribution of the institution itself enough? In your opinion, is the context of today’s cultural policy in Klaipėda favorable for the professionals of academic music and the cultural workshop in general to express themselves?

– On the one hand, even by maintaining the kind of funding that the city has allocated so far, quite a lot can be done. Especially since, as I mentioned, in certain situations, finances do not always become the decisive argument.

However, I will not deny – I see certain threatening moments related to recent realities – the optimization of cultural institutions and in general the relationship to this area, which cannot be ignored. Not only are events leaving the city, but experienced specialists are also “leaking”.

We must understand that high culture cannot be evaluated exclusively through an economic prism. It will never make a profit, it will never generate income. And since ancient times, it has been treated precisely as a matter of prestige. Therefore, we would very much like the attitude of the people who have decision-making power in Klaipėda to change – let’s make it so that academic art, high culture in Klaipėda is like that rolex on our hand, which we are proud of, and not a cheap mass-produced trinket that has no lasting value.