Vilnius has been making its mark for years as one of the most innovative and fast-growing cities with a focus on sustainability and harmonious life. Vilnius, which has successfully implemented projects on biodiversity, climate neutrality and adaptation, sustainable governance and green transformation, and which competed for the title of European Green Capital against Graz (Austria) and Guimarães (Portugal), has welcomed the year 2025 with this honourable award.

It is no wonder that the city’s ever-beautifying environment encourages residents and visitors to come together and spend their leisure time in green spaces, parks and squares, as well as promotes the flow of creative ideas. To remind us of Vilnius’ green spaces filled with music, the Vilnius City Patron Saint Christopher’s Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of conductor Modestas Barkauskas, presents a unique artistic project the Sounding City.

It is a cycle of four music videos filmed in various green spaces in Vilnius, where the sounds of classical music merge with the natural environment of the city—the rustling of trees, the songs of birds, and the sound of flowing water. The project invites everyone to look at Vilnius as a living cultural body, where nature and art not only coexist, but also complement and reinforce each other, creating a new soundscape of the city, where corners of the city emerge not not only as recreational spaces, but also as living cultural landscapes.

To promote the understanding of sustainability and the importance of nature through the prism of culture, to reveal the green spaces of Vilnius as a source of creativity and inspiration, bringing classical academic music closer to audiences of all ages, the orchestra artists offer the audience to immerse themselves in the neo-impressionist sound of the American composer Eric Whitacre’s Water Night, set against the backdrop of the sound of the Vilnelė River, the traditional Danish folk song Polska from Dorotea, filled with the spirit of old music, which is played against the panoramic view of the city from the bastion of the Vilnius defence wall, and the contemporary, live city rhythm of Misirlou from the 1994 film Pulp Fiction by director Quentin Tarantino, which found its place in a video clip in the spaces of the Vilnius railway station, or Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu’s And Birds Are Still, which complements the harmony of nature in Bernardinai Park. The musicians of the orchestra become not only performers, but also active creators of the city’s natural and cultural identity. It is a dialogue between music, image and space, in which sounds are unexpectedly integrated into everyday urban environments and reveal their aesthetic potential.

The Sounding City project is not only for music lovers—it is open to every citizen and visitor of Vilnius. It is an invitation to listen to your surroundings, to stop, notice, and enjoy. The city becomes the stage, and nature is not only the background, but also an equal partner, creating an emotional connection between man, art and the city—a connection that is so often missing in the urbanised world. It is also a subtle educational session, reminding us that

public spaces can be alive and inspiring, and that people can be inclusive, creative, complementary, but not polluting and destroying.

Symbolically marking Vilnius as the European Green Capital 2025, this creative initiative by the St Christopher Chamber Orchestra is not only a recognition of environmental achievements but also an incentive to foster the city’s green identity through culture and art. The Sounding City serves as a gift to the city and its people and as a piece of art that heals, inspires and creates.

We invite you to follow the St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra on Facebook and to watch, listen and take a journey through the Sounding City of Vilnius: