“Music is friendship,” Jonas Mekas has said many times, encouraging people to never stop singing. Even in restless times, friends gather once again—from New York, Naples, and Vilnius—to witness friendship and join in a shared creative frenzy, whose spirit was and remains Jonas Mekas.

For the fifth time, the festival of positive jazz and optimistic experimental music Keep Singing will enliven Vilnius Old Town. Organized by the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center together with the House of the Signatories of the Lithuanian National Museum (LNM), the festival will take place on December 12–13.

“Jonas Mekas’s work continues to inspire artists of different generations and genres. The focus of his gaze and the depth of his thought never let us rest—always surprising, always inviting us to create. The Keep Singing festival is a meeting place for the like-minded community brought together by Jonas Mekas,” says Gintaras Sodeika, head of the Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center and composer.

“Jonas Mekas believed that true ideas live where people choose to be together. The House of the Signatories is precisely such a place. It is important to us that the doors of this historic space remain open to contemporary culture and to artists who continue the dialogue Mekas began,” says Dalia Strimaitytė, Director of the House of the Signatories.

The main programme will traditionally take place in the Štralis Hall of the LNM House of the Signatories.

The festival will feature friends from New York who played and created with Jonas Mekas: the soul of the festival and its artistic director Dalius Naujokaitis–Naujo, drummer Kenny Wollesen, and saxophone master Jonathon Haffner. This year, Mekas’s friend from Naples, Giuseppe Zevola, will also join, along with numerous Lithuanian experimental and jazz musicians: festival curator Mindaugas Vadoklis, Simonas Nekrošius, Toma Čepaitė, Rocket SCI, Adas Gecevičius with Mantas Zemleckas, Haroldas Parulis, the Liudas Mockūnas Trio, and Lazydolphin. A major highlight will be the performance of the joint transatlantic “Keep Singing Big Band”. Ričardas Šileika will read poetry of Jonas Mekas. 

The festival’s main programme will also be accompanied by screenings of Jonas Mekas’s films. With live musical accompaniment, the audience will see “On My Way to Fujiyama I Saw…” and others.

Night Programme at Kernagis Bar

After the film screenings, we invite you to continue the music at Kernagis Bar, where musical surprises await, along with an open stage encouraging shared creative expression.

The extended festival programme will soon be announced on the website mekas.lt 

Main Programme

Location: Štralis Hall, LNM House of the Signatories (Pilies st. 26)
Tickets: “pay what you want” at the venue

Night Programme

Location: Kernagis Bar (Islandijos st. 1)
Tickets: free

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Artistic Director: Dalius Naujokaitis–Naujo
Curator: Mindaugas Vadoklis
Producer: Gintaras Sodeika

Visual Identity: Ineta Armanavičiūtė
Coordinator: Deva Bartninkaitė
Communication: Vėjūnė Irkmonaitė and Deva Bartninkaitė

Organizers:
Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center and Lithuanian National Museum (LNM) House of the Signatories

Festival is funded by:
Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality.

Festival partners:
Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, Hotel “Neringa”, “Eskedar Coffee Bar”, “Kernagis Bar”, “Center for International Cultural Projects”, “Travel Addicts Club”.