On the last evening of the year 2021, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and its artistic director Maestro Modestas Pitrėnas presented the audience with a spectacular musical feast. The gala concert Symphonic Fireworks for the New Year featured the alluring and fiery rhythms of Rupert Chapí’s and Gerónimo Giménez’s zarzuelas, as well as characterful symphonic miniatures by Emmanuel Chabrier and Leonard Bernstein. The National Philharmonic audience was also entertained by the most beautiful music from the operas of the French Romantics Charles Gounod, Amroise Thomas, Georges Bizet, and humorous excerpts from the operettas of Jacques Offenbach.

The festive symphony was joined by mezzo-soprano Justina Gringytė, one of Lithuania’s most prominent soloists, also enjoying international admiration. She won the Lithuanian Young Opera Soloist of the Year Award in 2015 and received particularly positive reviews for her performance as Carmen at the English National Opera and Scottish Opera. Music critics of the influential The Guardian have compared the strength of her voice to “armour of steel”. In her interpretations „she commands the stage, alternately spitting out or sliding deliciously around in her vocal lines, imperious one minute and fragile the next.” (The Scotsman).