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   Dear Secretary General, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, If one would ask a Lithuanian to name the greatest Lithuanian artist, he or she would most probably name Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis first. And very rightly so, as the unique genius of Čiurlionis has indeed left a profound imprint on Lithuanian culture. This exhibition is an attempt to present to you what we cherish most. This year we mark the 100th anniversary of death of the artist - the occasion which prompted UNESCO to dedicate this year to Čiurlionis. The work of the artist is not that well known outside Lithuania, although its appeal is certainly not limited to the national boundaries. It is planted firmly on the national soil and yet the universality is not affected.

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis was born in 1875 in Senoji Varėna, small town in the south of Lithuania, into the family of the church organist Konstantinas Čiurlionis and Adelė Marija Magdalena Radmanaitė-Čiurlionienė, Mikalojus Konstantinas was the eldest of nine children. In 1878 his family moved to Druskininkai. Čiurlionis was a musical prodigy: he could play by ear at age three and could sight-read music freely by age seven. Three years out of primary school, he went to study at the musical school of Duke Mykolas Oginskis where he learned to play several orchestral instruments. Supported by Duke Oginskis 'scholarship' Čiurlionis studied piano and composition at the Warsaw Conservatory from 1894 to 1899. Later he attended composition lectures at the Leipzig Conservatory, and studied drawing at the Warsaw School of Fine Arts from 1904 to 1906. In 1907 he became acquainted with Sofija Kymantaitė, an art critic and writer. Early in 1909 he married Sofija. At the end of that year he traveled to St. Petersburg, where he exhibited some of his paintings. On Christmas Eve Čiurlionis fell into a profound depression and at the beginning of 1910 was hospitalized in a sanatorium in Pustelnik, near Warsaw. While a patient there he died of pneumonia in 1911 at 35 years of age. He was buried at the Rasos Cemetery in Vilnius. He never saw his daughter Danutė.

Čiurlionis felt that he was a synesthete; that is, he perceived colors and music simultaneously. His work is truly unique for the synthesis of the aural and the visual, as you can see in his “musical” paintings, which recreate perfectly the musical compositional structures. Both a composer and a painter, over a short, mere decade-long, but very active artistic life, he composed nearly four hundred musical compositions, including two symphonic poems, sonatas, a string quartet and a cantata for chorus and orchestra; but also, during the same years, he also created approximately four hundred paintings and etchings, as well as several literary works and poems, while still finding time to experiment with art photography. His interests included history and geology, chemistry, geometry, physics and astronomy, astrology and mythology, languages and philosophical ideas, eastern and western religions.

In addition to all that creative work, he did not shy away from active involvement in the Lithuanian national movement and various other social engagements, which he believed has led to national and cultural emancipation of Lithuanians. He was at the heart of the creation of the Lithuanian Artists Union and actively participated in the first three exhibitions of Lithuanian artists, organized and directed Lithuanian Choruses in Warsaw, Vilnius and St.Petersburg, collected and published numerous Lithuanian folk songs. His passionate and idealistic approach might be illustrated by his refusal to accept an offer of a safe and well-paid teaching position at the Warsaw Institute of Music, which he explained in a letter to his brother as the intention to dedicate all his past and future works to Lithuania.

His artistic style was marked by the interaction of the diverse artistic ideas of Neo-Romanticism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau, typical of his epoch. The mysticism and decadence of fin-de-siècle has led him to the fascination with the spiritual, with the unearthly, the aspect of his work presented in the current exhibition in the Museum of the Modern and Contemporary Art of Strasbourg, which some of you have probably already seen.

This modest exhibition is conceived as a sketch on his life and work, organized around the physical, geographical places all over Europe, where he lived, studied and created, starting with the Lithuanian town Druskininkai, current mineral-water resort, leading to Plungė, Warsaw and Leipzig, where he studied, then trip to Caucasus and Crimea, travels in Europe (Prague, Dresden, Munich, Nurnberg, Vienna), first exhibitions in St-Petersburg and Moscow, and the activities in Lithuania, in Palanga and Vilnius.

Čiurlionis tragically did not live to see the declaration of independence of Lithuania in 1918, and his true acknowledgement and fame have also come only after his death. In 1921, a Čiurlionis gallery was opened in Kaunas, the interim capital of Lithuania between the two world wars. The bulk of his artistic legacy is presented there to this day. In 2001, a large exposition of Čiurlionis’ oeuvre was held in the Musee d’Orsay, which is presented here on the TV screen, accompanied by his symphonic compositions.

I’d like to add a very personal accent: during my childhood and school years, the best friend of mine was Vytautas Zubovas, a grandchild of Čiurlionis. The contact with the family of the daughter of Čiurlionis Danutė and Count Zubovas had a huge influence on me.

I am also extremely honored to present to you the first head of the re-established state of Lithuania, currently a Member of the European Parliament, a renowned researcher of Čiurlionis’ work, an author of his biography, performer and interpreter of his musical piano compositions, Professor Vytautas Landsbergis. Some of you might recall that the peaceful revolution against the totalitarian regime and for independence of Lithuania, led by Professor Vytautas Landsbergis more than twenty years ago, was titled the Singing revolution.

I believe Čiurlionis played a role in it as well.