This year the 15th Vilnius Festival will usher in the musical summer season with seven concerts to be presented at the National Philharmonic Hall and the National Opera and Ballet theatre in Vilnius from May 31st to June 14th. An illustrious crew of the internationally acclaimed Lithuanian and foreign musicians will demonstrate breathtaking musicianship and technical brilliance in diverse orchestral and chamber music programmes. Three Lithuanian composers – Vytautas Bacevičius, Vykintas Baltakas and Vidmantas Bartulis – will be featured among many other composers from various epochs and countries. On May 31st the Vilnius Festival will open with the appearance of the world-celebrated violinist, Vadim Repin, and the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra under its artistic director and principal conductor Gintaras Rinkevičius. Praised for his passion, superb technique, sensibility, elegance and subtlety, Repin has been classed with his illustrious predecessors like Yehudi Menuhin, Isaac Stern, Jascha Heifetz and David Oistrakh. Having already appeared at the previous editions of the Vilnius Festival, Repin returns to the stage of the National Philharmonic Hall in Vilnius to perform solo in Édouard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, ravishing with virtuosity and brilliance, Spanish dance rhythms and elegiac sadness. This concert (and the whole festival programme) will open with the electrifying Poème électrique written by Lithuanian modernist composer Vytautas Bacevičius in 1932, while the second half of the concert will be dedicated to the monumental late romantic score – First Symphony (1896) by Sergei Rachmaninov. Founded in 1997, the annual Vilnius Festival is one of the most prestigious, solid and versatile musical events in Lithuania. With primary interest in presenting classical music, performed by the established soloists, ensembles and symphony orchestras from all over the world, it also promotes contemporary Lithuanian music by commissioning new large-scale works, and offers a platform for jazz and musical theatre. The active participation of the Vilnius Festival in the programmes of Lithuanian cultural tourism and its close cooperation with diplomatic missions of foreign countries has generated high interest among foreign guests and tourists in both this event and Lithuanian cultural happenings in general. Following an example of world's major music festivals, the Vilnius Festival has formed its resident orchestra, the VILNIUS FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA. It was inaugurated under the baton and artistic leadership of the prominent violist Yuri Bashmet in 2003. In March 2005, the Orchestra went on its first European tour to Serbia, Bulgaria and Poland with Yuri Bashmet, Vadim Repin and David Geringas, followed by two Germany tours in July and August. Related links: • Full 2011 festival programme • 2009 EFA General Assembly and Conference in Vilnius