Arvo Pärt's school career began in 1943 at Rakvere Primary School No. 3 (in the current building of Rakvere Private High School), continued at Rakvere Secondary School No. 3, and spent his high school years at Rakvere Secondary School No. 1, or now Rakvere Secondary School. Pärt was the only boy in his class who could play the piano. That is why he always accompanied all school parties and other events on the piano and practiced the piano in the school's red corner as often as possible. Schoolmates have recalled, probably with a slight exaggeration, that Arvo only got up from behind the piano to play some other instrument. The school had a lively musical spirit thanks to teacher Jaan Pakk, who directed the school orchestras. The composer has recalled: "There were no oboes in our school orchestra. One day the teacher gave me an oboe and said: "You know the note, take it." I played the oboe terribly, and after a while I learned a little bit of the flute, while at the same time I also played the piano and percussion in a dance orchestra. Some knowledge of these instruments was helpful to me, not as a composer, but in my military service.” The composer assumes that due to his active musical activity, he was forgiven for some of his shortcomings, for example, Pärt could not get by with mathematics at school. Interestingly, years later, when he applied his compositional technique – tintinnabuli – in his work, the composer developed a different and closer relationship with mathematics.

After graduating from high school in 1954, Arvo Pärt’s life continued to Tallinn to study composition. In the capital, the young composer experienced both the joy of performances and recognition of his first works, as well as the stifling grip of Soviet power and criticism of his creative endeavors. The composer’s music diaries from the 1970s testify to summer visits to his mother in Rakvere, where Pärt used the piano while working, which has now found a home in the Rakvere Citizen’s Museum. Sketches for several works have been completed in Rakvere.

The Pärt family, forced to leave Estonia in 1980, lived for a while in Vienna, after which Berlin became their home for thirty years. The composer visited his homeland and Rakvere for the first time after emigrating in 1989, and has done so frequently since then:

“I always come back here to smell the smells of childhood... it's interesting that people never forget them,” he said in an interview given in Rakvere in 2000, showing a journalist the chestnut tree he used to climb.

In the immediate vicinity of Rakvere Gymnasium, on Freedom Square, the Paulus Church of the congregation was built, designed by Alar Kotli when the composer was a boy, but was never fully completed. During the Soviet era, the building was used as a gymnasium, where the future composer went to play basketball. When you think about the deepest source of Arvo Pärt's music, it is significant that a church stood in the immediate vicinity of the composer's school, and like the composer himself, this building also has its own complex history with a major final solution. The iconic architectural gem was restored for Arvo Pärt's 90th birthday as a kind of gift to both the composer and his hometown. Paulus Church became the Ukuaru concert hall, whose name comes from the beloved "Ukuaru waltz". The folk song, which was born in 1973 as the theme music for the film "Ukuaru", began to take its own path, finding new forms of life in instrument and dance settings and taking root in the hearts of the Estonian people. The Ukuaru waltz is also the concert hall's jingle for the events, calling audience from the lobby to the Fratres hall.

Arvo and Nora Pärt, upon returning from Germany, settled in Laulasmaa, a place close to the composer's heart, where the Arvo Pärt personal archive and center were established. While the composer from Rakvere found a home again, his work is like an adult child living his life on the world's greatest concert stages.

Check out Arvo Pärt's biography on the Arvo Pärt Center website.