They say you can't be a prophet in your village. Liudas Mockūnas, who will be performing this Friday at Palanga Kurhaus together with the famous pianist Petras Geniušas, is not a name that has been flashing in the media, although he is one of the most renowned jazz musicians and improvisers, who has been making Lithuania's name famous all over the world. The Vilnius-based musician, who calls his music a niche genre, was forced to fight from the school bench for the opportunity to play what he likes. This experience is still useful now, when he must choose between vocation and compromise. This is the subject of a conversation with Mockūnas on the eve of the concert of the International Čiurlionis Music Festival.

You are one of Lithuania's best-known jazz musicians, a laureate and winner of many international competitions, you have studied with the most renowned jazz teachers, and you have founded several collectives, a recording studio, and an improvisation club. Can we say that success smiles upon you?

Success without effort does not smile. To achieve your goals, you must put in a lot of effort and energy. Throughout my conscious life as an artist, I have been purposefully doing what I love, and I'm happy to have made something of myself in this field. It is not easy. It's not the path of popular music, but of constantly going against the tide. To keep in line, you must do a lot of activities around you. For example, I teach, I curate the “Improdimensija” project, which organises concerts, provides a stage to established and young talented improvisers. And these are just some of the many activities.

On the other hand, nowadays, making music is not just about playing. You can't sit and wait for someone to offer you a concert. You must become a manager yourself, and that means applications, reports, bookkeeping, and a lot of other not-so-interesting things. I accept it all as part of the profession, without which there would be no concerts.

What is the measure of a musician's success – concerts in prestigious venues, the number of tickets sold, the respect of colleagues?

For me, success means being able to play the music I love, not compromising, not looking for the easy way out. Of course, it costs a lot of energy and effort, just because I love improvised music. It's about communicating with colleagues through sounds, and the greatest reward is the joy we get from rehearsals and concerts. It's not measured in money or other tangible things.

You come from a dynasty of musicians – your grandfather used to play at home and your father was also a professional musician. Did you have the opportunity to choose a path other than music?

When I was a child, my father regulated my life to some extent – he decided where I should study. At first, I went to a simple secondary school and attended the B. Dvarionas Music School. Later, he noticed that I could do more, and I enrolled at the M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art. I may have had other dreams that I have forgotten, but I know that I always wanted to play. This is thanks to my dad, who took me to concerts from a very young age.

When you finished school, you could have had a secure job in an orchestra where you wouldn't have to worry about concerts. Wasn't the quiet life appealing?

Already at the M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art I knew I wanted to play jazz. Not all the teachers liked this dream of mine, which led to conflicts. On the other hand, I am grateful to them now, because I had to learn to go against the grain since I was a teenager.

I remember when Tomas Kutavičius, a then-young jazz musician and composer, started working at the school. He was teaching jazz improvisation. One day we were playing in class, and this piano teacher, I won't mention her last name, came running in. She says: "Stop damaging the instruments here!" This incident illustrates the attitude at the time.

At the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre the attitude was very similar. It changed very slowly, and it took many years for the current, very different generation of professors to grow up.

Now I teach at the Academy myself, and I understand that there is a generation coming up that wants to do things their own way, and now, for some, we are representatives of the old system.

How does the Lithuanian audience look in the context of other countries?

Lithuanian audiences are no different from other countries. They are educated and curious. Let's not forget that the genre I play is niche, so I usually see the same faces at club concerts or festivals. So, it's a great joy to see new people, especially young people, involved.

But it seems to be the same all over the world, so it's a natural situation, which is also common in all small countries – artists who want to make a living from their work have to be part of a bigger community. This is where the energy of a young artist who wants to perform must be directed. After all, you can only perform a few times a year in your own country, because the audience already knows the programme and is looking for something new, and an artist cannot "bake" one programme after another.

On the other hand, improvisation is the art of communication between the musicians on stage and the audience. Every performance on stage, especially if you play with other artists, is completely different, so in a way it is a new programme.

You will be performing in Palanga Kurhaus together with P. Geniušas. How was your duo born?

We have known each other for a very long time, but in 2011 our mutual friend Lijana Ruokytė-Johanson encouraged us to play Čiurlionis together when she asked if we could prepare a programme for the centenary of the composer's death. So, we have a kind of godmother (laughs). We travelled halfway around the world with this project for a few years, then we put it aside for a while, and this year, on the 150th anniversary of Čiurlionis' birth, we decided to revive it. I must confess that it is with great pleasure that we are playing this programme, and the first CD of it will be released on vinyl.

Improvising is like painting a picture of M. K. Čiurlionis, revealing your own view of his personality. How do you see him?

M. K. Čiurlionis is very close to me. In a sense, he was an improviser. There are a lot of sketches of his music that remain, which are unfinished, and they give you the opportunity to weave your own thoughts around them, without feeling that you are being blasphemous.

This programme is very seamless. It is extremely important to have an emotion, as if to communicate with Čiurlionis himself, to feel his life. It is very difficult to put into words, so I invite you to come to the concert and see for yourself.

Source: HERE

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