Robertas Varnas - išeivijos muzikinės kultūros puoselėtojas
LTLietuvių išeivijos kompozitorių kūryba sovietmečiu buvo ignoruojama ir menkinama. Tik XX a. devintojo dešimtmečio pabaigoje prasidėjus politinėms permainoms ir įsisteigus Persitvarkymo Sąjūdžiui, imta domėtis po Antrojo pasaulinio karo iš Lietuvos emigravusiais muzikais. Ne visi jų sulaukė nepriklausomos Lietuvos atkūrimo. Vienas iš tų, kuriems pasisekė apsilankyti tėvynėje ir joje išgirsti savo kūrinius, buvo nacionalinės premijos laureatas Jeronimas Kačinskas. Jo kūrybos sklaida ypač rūpinosi choro dirigentas ir pedagogas Robertas Varnas. Šios šaltinių publikacijos tikslas: a) per laiškus, siųstus iš Lietuvos į JAV, atskleisti Varno pastangas, rūpinantis Kačinsko muzikinio paveldo integravimu į Lietuvos kultūrą; b) išryškinti XX ir XXI amžių sandūroje vykusius politinius bei kultūrinius procesus. Pagrindiniai darbo metodai – archyvinių šaltinių ir literatūros analizė, chronologinis nuoseklumas.
ENRobertas Varnas (1930–2015) was a choir conductor and music teacher. As a choir leader in Kaunas, and afterwards in Klaipėda, he participated in song festivals and international competitions, toured abroad with various groups, organized festivals, and revived the interwar Aukuras Choirs Association. At the beginning of the Lithuanian Reform Movement, the Lietuvos Persitvarkymo Sąjūdis, Varnas immediately took to reviving the forgotten cultural heritage of Lithuania Minor and the choral music of the diaspora: from 1989 to 1994, he organized three conferences where the compositions of Lithuanians who had emigrated to the United States were performed. At his initiative, concerts of compositions by expatriate composers Alfonsas Mikulskis, Juozas Strolia, Vladas Jakubėnas, Juozas Žilevičius, and Faustas Strolia were given, and the 70th anniversary of the American Lithuanian magazine Muzikos žinios (Music News) was commemorated. Varnas paid special attention to the most noted Lithuanian modernist composer Jeronimas Kačinskas, whom he met in 1991, when the latter first visited independent Lithuania after a long period of time. Since then, the two corresponded for more than a decade. Kačinskas never discarded these letters from Lithuania and kept them until his death. His personal archive later went to relatives, who donated the documents to the Lithuanian Archives of Literature and Art. Varnas,s letters testifying to his initiatives to ask Kačinskas for further work and urging him to visit Lithuania again as well as his efforts in organizing his authorial concerts were also included. The text publishes 15 letters from Varnas, revealing his personal traits: erudition, tolerance, obligingness, broad knowledge of music, his enthusiasm to integrate the works of expatriate composers into the general history of Lithuanian music, and a unique approach to the political and cultural processes of his time.
