In Kaunas for Christmas and New Year? We’re positive you have a lot planned regarding sightseeing, street art, UNESCO-listed modernist architecture and nature, coffee, cake and fine dining, but what about some free time? In this guide, we’ve selected events worth attending during the holidays.
In Kaunas’ Christmas Town, located in the Town Hall Square, carol evenings are planned before Christmas Eve. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday after dark, starting at 5:30 pm, come and be inspired by the tender melodies.
The Retro Christmas concert series is a new addition to the festive season, starting this Thursday at Romuva cinema. Sung poetry, vintage sounds, tango, acoustic music, swing, operetta and other great things will turn Lithuania’s oldest cinema into a cosy music club during the holidays.
OLDMAN Kaunas, the live music venue in the Old Town, invited Lithuania’s favourite holiday band, Saulės kliošas, for Christmas. The thirteen-member collective Los Secretos de Pablo concert will occur on December 30. You’ll have a great time here if you like salsa, cumbia, bachata, reggae or ska music or dancing.
On the second day of Christmas, classical music fans will be treated to a concert by Asmik Grigorian, Edgaras Montvidas and Lithuania State Philharmonic Orchestra at Žalgirio Arena. More musical occasions are planned on Nemunas Island until New Year’s Eve – these are primarily popular and up-to-date Lithuanian singers.
Kaunas State Philharmonic Society invites you to the daily festive concerts starting on December 26 and culminating on New Year’s Eve. This year, the traditional marathon of festive music will offer meetings with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, the Kaunas State Choir, the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra and the like.
Those who are tired of the hustle and bustle will enjoy the exhibition-sensory installation “ArchiTextura: Unchanged & Evolving” by Rasa Chmieliauskaitė (Lithuania) and Tomomi Homma (Japan), which will be on show at the Kaunas Artists’ House until January 4. You can even lie down in the pavilion so that the smell of architecture becomes even more apparent and all your senses awaken.
Photo by Vytis Mantrimavičius
The inter-holiday week is an excellent opportunity to visit the exhibition “Green” of the National M. K. Čiurlionis Art Museum, which will run until the end of the year, and other exhibitions in this institution and in different museums and galleries in the city. With a day off in the calendar, you’ll have plenty of time to delve into painting, photography, authentic stories and the outstanding personalities who created them. And on the last day of the year, it’s Free Sunday! Just make sure the institution you want to visit is open - the festive elves will have come up with something.
December 29 is an essential day for fans of modern Lithuanian painting. Rimvidas Jankauskas-Kampas’ exhibition opens at Meno Parkas Gallery.
In the meantime, the Kaunas Photography Gallery runs an all-star exhibition and offers you to buy selected prints of fine photographs.
When not hosting concerts, Romuva is a perfect boutique cinema to see this year’s art-house favourites. At cineplexes Forum Cinemas and Cinamon, Vonka and his Chocolate Factory are, of course, reigning supreme this festive season. By the way, the latter cinemas will be open on Christmas Eve (until mid-afternoon) but not on Christmas Day.
’Tis the most challenging question, the answer to which will dictate itself after dark on December 31! If you can’t decide, know that a party without fireworks will definitely take place in Town Hall Square. And an hour before midnight, the bells of the Kaunas Carillon will ring. Maybe you’ll find some friends at the tower? This is a Kaunas tradition that we have no intention of breaking.
Another unbeatable offer is the electronic music festival called ‘Prisukamas Abrikosas’. The event, which has tried out many different spaces, will this time be housed in the cinema hall of M. Žilinskas Art Gallery. Advance tickets for the New Year’s party with DJs are available here.
P.S. If you still need to visit the renovated Lithuanian Zoo, know it is open even when nothing else is. That is, both at Christmas and on January 1.
