developing the tradition of cultural, scientific and technical innovations that were ahead of the times, Duke Bogdanas Oginskis founded the first six-year music school in Lithuania in Rietavas in 1872. Under the direction of Jozef Mašek, a talented musician from the Czech Republic, a professional symphony orchestra was established there in 1883. Oginski's example, his brother Mykolas Oginski founded a music school in Plungė in 1873. In the heyday of the two schools, the combined orchestra had 110-120 musicians. It was here, in Samogitia, in the second half of the 19th century, that the foundations and traditions of Lithuanian orchestral culture were formed.Although B. Oginskis' death in 1909 brought an end to the activities of the music school, but many of its pupils continued their musical traditions in Rietavas on a social basis. Until World War II, they were led by Mykolas Butkevičius, assistant to the former orchestra leader J. Mašek. In 1918, thanks to the care of the Rietavas light community, the music hall building housed a gymnasium, which was transformed into a secondary school in 1949. When the school moved to new premises in 1963, the music hall was left without a landlord and slowly began to fall into disrepair. Thanks to the efforts of former gymnasium pupils and public figures, the decade-long restoration of this monument to cultural history began in 1989-1990. After the completion of the works, in 2000 the Rietavas Municipal Council decided to establish the Rietavas Oginski Cultural History Museum here. It is worth remembering that in 2005-2015, on the initiative of the Museum, a programme for the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mykolas Kleopas Oginskis, a prominent statesman and public figure, composer, was successfully implemented, which had a wide international resonance. The anniversary celebrations in Rietavas are commemorated by a monument erected in 2015 on the ground floor of the former Oginski residence in Rietavas, next to the colonnade. It commemorates the memory of the Oginskis, who contributed to the development of education, culture, science and technical innovation not only in Rietavas, but also throughout Lithuania. (The author of the monument is sculptor Regimantas Midvikis).
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