CONCERTS

77TH SEASON OF

national gallery of art | december 9, 2018
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PROGRAM

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Mettis String Quartet

With Gabrielius Alekna, piano 

Kostas Tumosa, violin

Bernardas Petrauskas, violin

Karolis Rudokas, viola

Rokas Vaitkevičius, cello

Presented in collaboration with the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania

December 9, 2018 | 3:30

West Building, West Garden Court

Remigijus Merkelys (b. 1964)

MiKonst

Gabrielius Alekna, piano

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875 – 1911)

String Quartet in C Minor

Allegro moderato

Andante

Menuetto

Intermission

Philip Glass (b. 1937)

String Quartet no. 2, “Company” I. Quartet note = 96

II. Quartet note = 160

III. Quartet note = 96

IV. Quartet note = 160

Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856)

Piano Quintet, op. 44 

Allegro brillante

In modo d’una marcia. Un poco largamente

Scherzo. Molto vivace

Allegro ma non troppo

Gabrielius Alekna, piano

Photo by Kestutis Pleita
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Alekna is passionately interested in the piano music by Lithuania’s twentiethcentury, avant-garde composers, Vytautas Bacevičius and Jeronimas Kačinskas. 

The British label Toccata Classics has issued two volumes in an ongoing series of 

Bacevičius’s piano music recorded by Alekna. In recording volume one of this series 

(Bacevičius’s complete Mots, issued in 2012), Alekna collaborated with five-time 

Grammy-winning producer Judith Sherman and five-time Grammy-nominated 

pianist Ursula Oppens. Alekna’s critically acclaimed recording of Bacevičius’s Piano 

Concertos nos. 3 and 4 with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra under 

conductor Christopher Lyndon-Gee was released by Naxos in 2015. Kačinskas’s 

piano works appeared in 2013 on another release by Toccata Classics. Alekna’s other 

recordings include a 2007 CD of cello and piano music recorded with Edvardas 

Armonas and released by the Lithuanian National Radio.

THE MUSICIANS

The Mettis String Quartet is comprised of four different, charismatic personalities 

from Vilnius, Lithuania — musicians who give all their heart in every performance to 

make it extraordinary.

Founded in 2012, the Mettis String Quartet is named after the Greek goddess 

Metis — the first wife of Zeus, known for her cunning, wisdom, and skill. The quartet’s 

members have studied at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius 

and the European Chamber Music Academy under the tutelage of Hatto Beyerle and 

Johannes Meissl.

In 2015, Mettis released its debut album featuring the quartets of Beethoven and 

Shostakovich. The group garnered international recognition with a second-place award 

at the 8th Bordeaux International String Quartet competition, along with a special 

prize for the best performance of Durosoir’s String Quartet, as well as winning the IX

International V. E. Rimbotti Competition in Italy. The ensemble has traveled extensively 

throughout the European continent, performing in prestigious venues, including 

London’s Wigmore Hall, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle, and festivals in 

Luberon, Aix-en-Provence, and Montpellier’s Radio France. In 2017, the quartet played 

nearly fifty concerts throughout Europe and China. This season, Mettis will perform 

in Israel, Canada, the United States, Panama, and Australia, and plans to release a new 

CD in collaboration with Lithuanian pianist Mūza Rubackytė.

Gabrielius Alekna won second place at the 2005 International Beethoven Piano 

Competition in Vienna and has appeared as a solo pianist in Vienna’s Musikverein with 

the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Bertrand de Billy. He has 

been a featured soloist with the Juilliard Orchestra, the New Amsterdam Symphony 

Orchestra, and the Adelphi Symphony Orchestra in New York, the Wartburg Community 

Symphony in Iowa, the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra in Ankara, Turkey, and the Belarus 

State Symphony Orchestra in Minsk. In his native Lithuania, Alekna appears regularly 

with major orchestras, including the National Symphony, the State Symphony, and 

the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Christopher Chamber and the 

Lithuanian Chamber Orchestras. Described by Daniel Barenboim as “a highly gifted 

pianist and musician,” Alekna has garnered more than a dozen top prizes in competitions on both sides of the Atlantic.
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As part of the Lithuanian Centennial Celebration, the Embassy of Lithuania in Washington, 

DC, together with the National Gallery of Art, present a musical project by brilliant 

Lithuanian musicians and prizewinners of international competitions — pianist 

Gabrielius Alekna and the Mettis String Quartet. The musicians have teamed up to 

present various facets of the Lithuanian modern classics, from the String Quartet 

by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, who founded professional schools in music 

and the visual arts in Lithuania, to Čiurlionis-inspired MiKonst for piano and strings 

by the outstanding contemporary composer Remigijus Merkelys. Lithuanian works 

will be complemented by American contemporary classics, the String Quartet no. 2, 

“Company,” by Philip Glass and an exciting masterpiece from the romantic era, Robert 

Schumann’s Piano Quintet.

The concert concludes a number of events that were offered by the Lithuanian 

Embassy to Washingtonians during 2018 to commemorate the Centennial of the 

Restored State of Lithuania and to celebrate the country’s long-lasting partnership 

with the United States.

PROGRAM NOTES Upcoming Events of the SeventySeventh Season of The William Nelson 

Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin Concerts

Unless otherwise noted, concerts 

are held in the West Building, West 

Garden Court.

Westminster Presbyterian Choir 

and Ringers

Benjamin Hutchens, director

West Building Rotunda

December 15, 1:30 and 2:30

Saint John Paul the Great Catholic 

High School Choir

Kelly Kingett, director

West Building Rotunda

December 16, 1:30 and 2:30

Hot Club of San Francisco

Hot Club, Cool Yule

A holiday offering of Gypsy jazz. 

December 16, 3:30

Daniel Schlosberg, piano

Jessica Aszodi, soprano

Russell Rolen, cello

Sung /  Unsung: Weill and Poulenc 

December 23, 3:30

Eric Mintel Quartet

East Building Auditorium

December 28, 12:10

General Information

Admission to the National Gallery of Art 

and all of its programs is free of charge, 

except as noted.

The use of cameras or recording 

equipment during the performance 

is not allowed.

Please be sure that all portable electronic 

devices are turned off.

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Concerts are made possible in part 

through the generosity of donors to the 

National Gallery of Art through The Circle. 

Reserved seating is available in recognition 

of their support. Please contact the 

development office at (202) 842-6450 or 

circle@nga.gov for more information.

—

The department of music produced 

these program notes. Copyright © 2018 

Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, 

Washington

Cover Louis Casimir Ladislas Marcoussis, 

The Musician (detail), 1914, National 

Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale 

Collection 
NGA.GOV/MUSIC