New York City (October 18-19, 2008) gathered almost twenty film composers from the entire world to improve their skills in orchestration. The composers from Argentina, Brazil, Spain, Portugal, England, Taiwan and the United States came to a workshop held by Steven Scott Smalley, who is an established musician and orchestrator in Hollywood. A two-day session provides composers not only with great handy tools of making their orchestra sound better. It inspires to create music with those new skills in mind. Scott is a great teacher and he manages to tell important details to each of the composers, no matter what experience they may have.

When introduced that I come from Lithuania, Scott was excited that I am his first Lithuanian student on the long list of over two thousand American and international students.

Lithuania hosted 10th International Congress on Musical Signification (ICMS 10) October 21-25, 2008. A four-day event focused on various aspects of musicology, including film music. The Congress is organized since 1986 and has venues every two or three years. The scholars and speakers from Europe and the United States come to share the newest developments of musicology as well as discuss the new trends in music. The organizers of Vilnius Congress decided to invite the scholars to discuss the matters under the main theme of Before and After Music. It is also new for this event to expand the session on film music. One of the organizers of ICMS 10, Darius Kucinskas (PhD), invited Titas Petrikis to make a report on contemporary changes in treating film sound and music. The report covered how film sound technologies from historical perspective allowed filmmakers to improve their capabilities in dealing with film sound and music. New digital technologies allow filmmakers to have precise sound and music manipulation tools. The report discussed how this technological advancement may improve film soundtrack.

The Picture Gallery of M.K.Ciurlionis Museum opens its door to the fifth annual show "Art + Art to Communicate". This year the organizers put emphasis on the implementation of the sound in arts. The usage of the sonic elements in modern art installations is recent. The artists often employ sound to create unusual art environments or form a particular emotion of their installations.

Titas was invited to compose sound for two installations. Egle Bernatonyte's umbrellas under the roof required the sound of storm and rain. Monika Stasiulionyte was aiming to scare small children while they are searching for a yellow ball hidden under the dozen of small toy-buckets.

For the third year Film Music Magazine presents an exclusive national conference for film composers. The event sums up the trends in film and game music industry. The panel presentations made by established composers discussed interesting topics: the art and craft of composing for indie films, composer business issues, music libraries and digital distribution of music, and many others..

Most of the speakers agreed that digital age brings new opportunities and challenges for composer. New technology helps to ease the process of composing, nevertheless music performed and recorded by real musicians has better quality in it. The directors and producers seldom feel the difference between real performance and computer generated sound. Part of the composer's job is to communicate the importance of live sound.

The Lithuanian televisions start autumn by announcing new shows and programs. The filmmakers are busy with either shooting the films or developing new stories. It looks like everybody is busy and working. But where is FUN? The fun is around the corner, I would say. It is fun when today is somehow different from yesterday. When I learn the new things which make me to remember a particular day - this is an interesting life!

Tadas Sileika (Vilnius Orchestral Music Fans) invited me to the opening of their new orchestra season. Each orchestra player makes a stop in their casual jobs and comes to the beautiful nature camp near the lakes of Trakai. The camp, located in Daugirdiskes, usually attracts wedding parties, but last week (Aug 18-21) the sound of orchestral music was well heard in the vicinities. The Vilnius Orchestral Music Fans gathered to have a good time together: playing music or basketball.

Entertainment and Film News Source www.Variety.com presents Alissa Simon’s review about the Lithuanian film The Collectress. Being selected to the 43rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, the film is screened at East of the West competition.

Electronic music fans gathered in Klapeda this weekend. Mobilizacija 2008 is a contemporary music festival for local composers and audiovisual art performers. Each year the citizens of Klaipeda can see and hear new projects of their fellow artists of Klaipeda. Titas was invited as the guest composer of this year.

Two films Titas Petrikis scored music for received the first Lithuanian Cinema awards -Silver Crane. Jurate Samulionyte's stop-motion film No Routine received Best Short's Film award whereas the feature film Collectress was announced the Best Feature Film. Both of the films successfully find their place at screenings of various international film festivals. No Routine already has been shown in Munich (Germany), Tel Aviv (Israel) and Hong-Kong (China). The Collectress is being transfered from HDV to 35mm and will be screened at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Titas Petrikis music (The Film 'Collectress') is nominated for a 'Silver Crane'. It is a national Lithuanian award for the best works in Television and Film branches and will be organized for the fist time in 2007.


14 'Silver Cranes' will be shared in such nominations: Feature Film, Documentary, TV Film, Animation, Short film, Directing, Script, Actress in a Leading Role, Actress in a Supporting Role, Actor in a Leading Role, Actor in a Supporting Role, Art Direction, Cinematography, Soundtrack.

Jeronimas Milius presented the concept of his performance at the Eurovision song contest 2008. Exclusive presentation was organized just for the press at midnight of yesterday (May 9th, 2008) in Kalnu parkas (Vilnius, Lithuania).


Jeronimas Milius will sing a melody rock song "Nomads in the Night". He will perform alone on stage and plan to surprise everyone by his rich and powerful voice. Good looking guy will be dressed in an Icelandic style costume and accessories created by Egle Babilaite-Sitas.