5 Euros Herman Perelstein, founder of the Choir Ąžuoliukas

Herman Perelstein founded the Vilnius Boys' Choir Ąžuoliukas in 1959 and directed it for over four decades, building it into one of the most decorated children's choirs in Soviet and post-Soviet Europe. That a Jewish conductor working within a Soviet Lithuanian institution became the defining figure of what is now a national cultural institution is a story the coin's mintage year does little to explain on its own. Perelstein died in 2007; this issue arrives sixteen years later.