On October 25, see “Even If I Lose Everything,” Dorian Supin’s third and final documentary about Estonian master composer Arvo Pärt, with a panel featuring celebrated virtuosos Peter Bouteneff, David Lang, and Paavo Järvi to follow! This program takes place alongside celebrations of the composer this season at Carnegie Hall, including an October 23 performance with the Estonian Festival Orchestra, and will be conducted in the presence of H.E. Alar Karis, President of Estonia, H.E. Heidy Purga, Estonia’s Minister of Culture, and H.E. Kristjan Prikk, Estonia’s Ambassador to the United States.

Perhaps the most personal installment of Supin’s series, this intimate portrait steps closer to the man behind the music, showing his many sides in a domestic setting as a composer, husband, father, and grandfather as he navigates the demands of his legacy. Once known as the avant-garde firebrand driven from his country by Soviet censorship for his radically prayerful melodies, “Even If I Lose Everything” centers on the gentler rhythms of Pärt’s days back home on the eve of his 80th birthday.

The film draws its title – and much of its stories – from flashes of Pärt’s workbooks, all of which he has kept close through endless personal and political upheavals. Throughout his decades of writing music, he has filled the workbooks with contemplations expressing his moments of grief and joy, his discoveries, worries, and experiences. The musings and recollections inspired by these notes, in parallel with glimpses of domesticity, come together to reveal a composer committed to living a life in accordance with the music he creates: meditative, emotionally evocative, spacious, and grounded in the realm of the sacred.

Pärt’s music has insinuated itself deep into the cultural landscape, not only as a phenomenon extending far beyond the usual classical listenership. It has enriched countless films and dance compositions, it has inspired the work of visual artists and architects. And although his musical style is rarely imitated in a direct fashion, he has influenced contemporary composers in ways that may be less obvious. How does this gentle music make such a broad and deep impact? The panel conversation will draw us deeper into Pärt’s cultural resonance.