The memorandum that the Salzburg Festival drew up for its centenary celebrations in 2020 contains the sentence: "Salzburg is not only geographically in the middle of Europe." Now it is not known how the authors of this memorandum define "Europe" (there are also People who think that Mont Blanc and not Elbrus is the highest mountain on the continent).

Nothing is known about how good their geography lessons may have been.

But just in time for the so-called eastward enlargement of the European Union on May 1, 2004, the extremely witty documentary "Die Mitte" by Polish director Stanisław Mucha was released in the cinemas.

After amusing trips to the Napoleonic, Franz-Josephine and Wilhelmine “middle” of Europe, he made it clear: If one understands Europe not politically and not from the perspective of a Latin-influenced claim to sole representation, but according to the convention laid down in 1989 by the National Geographical Institute of France, namely than that part of the world that stretches from the Urals to the Azores and from Spitsbergen to the Canary Islands, then its center is in - Lithuania!

This is the epicenter of the special

So much further east and much further north than you might think in Salzburg, this “epicenter of the special” (as the memorandum goes on to say).

In recent years, three outstanding sopranos from Lithuania, Asmik Grigorian, Vida Miknevičiūtė and Aušrinė Stundytė, have not only triumphed on the opera stage in Salzburg.

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and Giedrė Šlekytė, both Lithuanians, are among Europe's leading women conductors.

And the winners of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) for 2023 have just been announced, critics' awards from a coalition of European specialist magazines for classical music from Great Britain to Spain, France and Poland to Finland.

Germany is represented on the jury by Anastassia Boutsko, music editor at Deutsche Welle, Gerald Mertens, editor-in-chief of Das Orchester magazine, and Martin Hoffmeister, music editor at MDR Klassik.

The Lithuanian cellist David Geringas received the award for his life's work.

The CD "Dissonance" was awarded as the best vocal music recording, with songs by Sergei Rachmaninoff, sung by Asmik Grigorian, accompanied by the Lithuanian pianist (and runner-up in the Tchaikovsky Competition 2015) Lukas Geniušas.

Lithuania is not only geographically in the middle of Europe.

Musically, the country also seems to be an epicenter of something special.

The West, which considers itself to be in the middle, is allowed to listen and think.