It was with great pleasure that I took up the opportunity to show Piano Migrations in Vilnius, Lithuania. The location has personal relevance because the piece grew from an exploration into my family history. My great-grandparents migrated from Klaipeda, Lithuania to Wigan, UK in 1901. My grandmother went on to work in a music shop that sold pianos – and it was on one of these pianos, that I learnt to play as a child. My fascination and love of birds highlighted a similarity in my family’s migration route, to the Baltic migration passage flown by many birds every year. And so, Piano Migrations is a poetic meditation on these phenomena. An old, broken piano is migrated into a installation that is played by videos of migrating birds.

Every year, Vilnius hosts it’s own “Culture Night” – an extraordinary event that sees as many as 160 art events all happening in the city during one night. Piano Migrations was part of this, and alongside giving a short lecture at Vilnius Art Academy, myself and Matthew Olden put up the Piano Migrations installation, ran Music Box Migrations workshop and performed live with the piano. We were also fortunate enough to spend a few more days in the beautiful city of Vilnius, which we would highly recommend for a visit. We were invited and hosted by the wonderful Judita and Kristina Strumilaite, given expert technical help from Martynas Kolodzeiskis with financial support from British Council Lithuania…  – Thankyou!

Some pictures of the installation – and from the music box workshop below.