The Berkshire Eagle
Monday, August 14 2000
Richard Houdek: "Art triumphs over nature on a rainy day at Tanglewood"
(...) LENOX - The tantalizing prospect of hearing five U.S. premieres on a single afternoon is enough to brighten the grimmest of days in this summer of our meteorological discontent. And, indeed, that's the way it was at Friday's edition of the Festival of Contemporary Music in Tangle-wood's Ozawa Hall: The heavens opened up once more, thunder roared intermittently; still, it was music that triumphed.
Elliot Carter, the 91-year-old eminence gris in American music and this year's festival composer-in-residence, was man of the day with three of his works in performance, including two premieres.
Other works new to this country arrived-via the Italian Ivan Fedele, the Frenchman Gerard Grisey and the Lithuanian Vykintas Baltakas.
(...)
Equally triumphant was her performance in RiRo, also U.S. premiere, by Baltakas. As with Lucia and Donizetti's flute, Baltakas establishes Shelton and Trumpeter Stephen Tilstaert as equal musical partners, alternately challenging and reinforcing each other. (...)
Ostfriesen Zeitung
27. September 1997
Joachim Klünner: "Ein überraschendes Klangerlebnis"
Mit Verve gestaltete Rita Balta die zeitgenössischen Kompositionen von Feliksas Bajoras und Vykintas Baltakas. Der letztere, erst 27 Jahre alte Komponist hatte im Auftrag des Ensembles ein beeindruckendes Duett für Sopran und Trompete geschrieben, das die Stimme der Sängerin wie ein in den allerhöchsten Lagen erklingendes Instrument einsetzte. Faszinierend wirkten die scheinbar mühelosen piano-Töne des Soprans in exponierter Höhe, aber auch das warme Timbre der Tiefe.
The Jakarta Post
September 28, 1997
Helly Minarti
(...) But the surprising element came from the youngest composer, Vykintas Baitakas, 27, who also studied music in Karlsruhe. His contemporary piece, RiRo, was composed earlier in this year especially for the group.
The melody is a collection of short yet mostly high tones out of Aust's eloquent trumpet, accompanied by the equally intense-curious cacophony from Balta. Sometimes she seemed to be putting all her strength into reaching high notes in an uneven scale, before she plunged into low ones by mumbling two consonants together in a stacatto-like effort. (...)