Blockveranstaltung: Arvo Pärt: Soundscapes of the Sacred (16–20 June 2026) - Details

Blockveranstaltung: Arvo Pärt: Soundscapes of the Sacred (16–20 June 2026) - Details

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General information

Course name Blockveranstaltung: Arvo Pärt: Soundscapes of the Sacred (16–20 June 2026)
Semester SoSe 2026
Current number of participants 22
expected number of participants 20
Home institute Theologische Fakultät
participating institutes Musikwissenschaft
Courses type Blockveranstaltung in category Offizielle Lehrveranstaltungen
Next date Tuesday, 16.06.2026 09:00 - 14:00
Lehrsprache(n) Englisch
ECTS points 2

Rooms and times

No room preference
Tuesday, 16.06.2026 09:00 - 14:00
Wednesday, 17.06.2026 09:00 - 14:00
Thursday, 18.06.2026 09:00 - 14:00
Friday, 19.06.2026 09:00 - 14:00
Saturday, 20.06.2026 09:00 - 14:00

Module assignments

Comment/Description

In September 2025, the Estonian Orthodox composer Arvo Pärt—one of the greatest living composers—celebrated his 90th birthday. In the 1960s, he was a leading figure of the Soviet musical avant-garde, but gradually turned toward an increasingly profound engagement with religious themes and joined the Orthodox Church in 1972. His life and work have since been deeply shaped by ecclesiastical, indeed monastic, influences. He emerged as a religious thinker and a philosopher of music. As a result of his oppositional stance, he was forced to leave the Soviet Union in 1980 and lived in Germany for nearly thirty years, returning to Estonia only in 2008.
The block seminar is aimed at students of theology and musicology at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, as well as students of the Protestant University of Church Music in Halle and visiting students from the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania). In this way, the block seminar is also intended to foster transnational, interconfessional, and interdisciplinary exchange among younger theologians and musicologists. The seminar will be led by Prof. Dr. Peter Bouteneff—Professor of Orthodox Systematic Theology and Religious Art at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York, biographer of Arvo Pärt (Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence, 2015), and himself a trained musician.
The block seminar (18–20 June 2026) will be preceded by a two-day introductory program (16–17 June), designed to introduce students to Orthodoxy and all participants to the music of Pärt. This preparatory component of the seminar will be led by Prof. Dr. Tomi Mäkelä (MLU, Musicology), Prof. Dr. Stanislau Paulau (MLU, Theology), Dr. Irina Pärt (University of Tartu, Estonia), and Dr. Anna Briskina-Müller (MLU, Theology).
On 18 June 2026, a public lecture by Prof. Bouteneff, accompanied by music, will take place at Halle Cathedral and will be open to the interested public. The musical programme will be provided by the choir of the Protestant University of Church Music in Halle, the Theological Choir of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania), and the Stadtsingechor Halle. This public component of the block seminar is compulsory for all participants and will be credited as two 90-minute sessions.

Die Arbeitssprache des Seminars ist Englisch, niemand soll sich aber abgeschreckt fühlen. Bei Schwierigkeiten mit der Sprache werden wir uns alle gegenseitig helfen. // The working language of the seminar will be English; however, no one should feel discouraged. Should any language difficulties arise, we will support one another throughout.