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Kate Molleson and Michael Pärt discuss his family’s forced emigration and their journey into the unknown.

Composer of the Week celebrates the 90th birthday of Arvo Pärt, one of the world’s most-performed and recognisable living composers. A composer who had the courage to defy Soviet edicts, to spend years searching for answers, to invent a personal language that pivots on past and present, on sound, silence and clarity. Throughout the week, Kate Molleson explores Pärt’s landmark works and extraordinary story in conversation with his son Michael. And researchers from the Arvo Pärt Centre in Laulasmaa, Estonia provide exclusive insights into Pärt’s more personal archive.

Today, Kate and Michael look back on the moment it became impossible for his parents to stay in their homeland and the extraordinary scene of Pärt’s forbidden music accidentally resonating around the departure hall of a Belarusian border check point. Journeying into the unknown, the family had to start afresh in Berlin, where Pärt’s music found a global audience and new collaborators.

Hymn to a Great City
Katia and Marielle Labèque, piano

De Profundis
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Christopher Bowers-Broadbent, organ
Tõnu Kaljuste, conductor

Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten
Stuttgart State Orchestra
Dennis Russell Davies, conductor

Spiegel im Spiegel
Vladimir Spivakov, violin
Sergej Bezrodny, piano

Passio (excerpt)
The Hillard Ensemble
Paul Hillier, conductor

Berlin Mass (2nd Alleluia; Veni, Sancte Spiritus; Credo)
Polyphony
Andrew Lucas, organ
Stephen Layton, conductor

Produced by Amelia Parker for ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Audio Wales and West