PLAYGROUND

Playground – Annual Contemporary Music Series Playground is a year-long contemporary music concert series organized and curated by Tarp Tylos. The series comprises ten unique concerts, showcasing a range of contemporary music practices, highlighting cultural and artistic value, reaching the target audience, and ensuring broad dissemination of activities. Each concert features the most prominent Lithuanian and international creators and performers. Every event reflects different directions in contemporary music – from composition and improvisation to sound installations and performance art – providing a platform for musical discovery and dialogue. During the series, ten new works by Lithuanian composers will premiere, alongside nine new conceptual programs performed for the first time. The 2026 PLAYGROUND contemporary music concert series will bring together leading Lithuanian artists alongside prominent international ensembles and creators from the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Austria, Latvia, and Estonia, featuring Anzû Quartet (United States); Dominykas Digimas (Lithuania); Clara de Asís (Spain/Austria); Liudas Mockūnas (Lithuania); GBSR Duo (United Kingdom); Artūras Kažimėkas (Lithuania); Anna Fišere (Latvia); Ignas Šoliūnas with saxophone octet (Lithuania); Elo Masing (Estonia); BASS4 (Lithuania); Chordos Quartet with Edgy Palates (Lithuania); Cello Club with Indrė Baikštytė (Lithuania); Lazy Diamonds Underground (Lithuania); and Twenty Fingers Duo (Lithuania). In collaboration with Radio Vilnius, ten discussion and talk programs will engage artists and performers, deepening the audience’s understanding of contemporary music. The project also fosters creative connections among performers, composers, and sound, visual, and video artists, encouraging new forms of collaboration. This year’s Playground program not only continues the exploratory direction established in previous editions but also focuses on individual instrumental expression and the boundaries of sonic possibilities. In the first years (2025), the series emphasized acoustic instruments, their sonic variety, and the fusion of genres. This year, the program highlights the spectrum of sounds from synthetic instruments and objects, creating a parallel sonic reality. A significant portion of the program is dedicated to Lithuanian composers and their new works – the core of the series – which strengthens the local scene while creating a tradition for the future. Simultaneously, the series expands the stage by inviting internationally recognized creators and ensembles to share their expertise, artistic programs, and provide diverse contexts for dialogue and exchange. Curatorially, the series aims to present contemporary music practices in which new music unfolds innovatively, articulating the possibilities of the art form. The program is structured around three main themes: 1. Material – acoustics, instrument/object transformation, post-instrumental approaches: exploring sound as an active material. 2. Space – site-specific practices, sound installations, spatial sound: space as a decisive factor shaping the formation of the score. 3. Co-Laboratory – workshop-based experimental practices for musicians across different styles, integrating collaboration and movement between stylistic approaches: improvisation, electronics, notated music, emphasizing distributed authorship. This thematic organization supports the central concept of the series – playfulness in new music – while presenting a rich and diverse musical landscape. Although contemporary music resists strict categorization, this thematic axis provides balance across stylistically varied concerts. Playground seeks to attract new audiences and make contemporary music relevant by combining education, communication, and accessibility: pre-concert public talks, social media and digital platform engagement, and special ticket offers for youth and socially sensitive groups.

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