Osvaldas Balakauskas is a Lithuanian composer who is five years younger than Vytautas Landsbergis, and, like him, has worked extensively in Lithuanian political affairs since the country was granted freedom from the Soviet Union in 1990. Somehow despite holding down the position of diplomat from Lithuania to various nations, Balakauskas managed to find the time to continue working as a composer; he is now retired from politics and teaches composition at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater in Vilnius. Although he ...
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Osvaldas Balakauskas is a Lithuanian composer who is five years younger than Vytautas Landsbergis, and, like him, has worked extensively in Lithuanian political affairs since the country was granted freedom from the Soviet Union in 1990. Somehow despite holding down the position of diplomat from Lithuania to various nations, Balakauskas managed to find the time to continue working as a composer; he is now retired from politics and teaches composition at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater in Vilnius. Although he studied music with Boris Lyatoshinsky at the Moscow Conservatory in the 1960s, nothing could be further from the sound of socialist realism than Naxos' Osvaldas Balakauskas: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5, nor does it sound like the Penderecki and Lutoslawski works associated with that era. Balakauskas has written, "During the Soviet era, I was much more modern. At that time, modernism was like taking a stand against the Soviet regime, it was like demonstrating for spiritual freedom. Now I'm...
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