It was back in 2006 when the 19-year-old Lithuanian composer Gediminas Gelgotas came up with an idea to find an ensemble that would perform his music and translate his artistic visions into reality. Now, around 15 years later, this embodiment of ‘one-artist-vision’, called the New Ideas Chamber Orchestra NICO, constantly brings composer’s music to the leading classical and contemporary music venues and reaches new and young audiences of classical music with their highly attractive, captivating, and original music performances.

The uniqueness of NICO concept is highly determined by Gelgotas’ musical language itself, in which the classical music idiom is mixed with light hints and influences of popular music. Composer’s vision of integrating minimalistic choreographic details into performances while the musicians play music by heart, using non-traditional string instrument techniques and voice, all of it combined is what creates the exciting concert experiences, that are reinventing the borders between experimental, minimal, contemporary art and more popular, mainstream music forms. Their shows also often incorporate stunning transcriptions of most beloved classical works by Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart, as well as new music of other minimalists such as Riley, Glass, Tavener, Pärt and others. When listening to NICO, you may want to turn inward and meditate, or just get up and dance – the effect is mesmerizing, and the result is inspiring to all ages.

NICO is making their appearances at the prestigious concert venues and festivals, including Leipzig Gewandhaus, St Martin-in-the-Fields and Roundhouse in London, Odessa and St Petersburg Philharmonic Halls, Usedomer (Germany), Toulon (France), Odessa Classics (Ukraine), Ventura (USA) music festivals. NICO is also capturing attention of international press – Classic FM radio station with 5.5 million listeners have presented NICO live from their studios, whilst BBC World Service named NICO „truly worth attention” during a 10-minute special on Gelgotas and his ensemble. Besides their appearances across Europe, Asia and the United States NICO have performed for His Holiness Dalai Lama and Pope Francis. Their latest recording session took place at the prestigious Real-World Studios in United Kingdom, with previous albums recorded at Paramount (Los Angeles), Metropolis (London), Peermusic Classical (Hamburg) studios and released by Peermusic Classical. NICO collaborates with such performers as Kristjan Järvi, David Geringas, Roman Patkoló, Mari Samuelsen, Avi Avital, Ksenija Sidorova, Kiril Troussov, Ole Edvard Antonsen among others.