News | 10.09.2019

KREMERATA BALTICA FESTIVAL 2019

During the XVI Kremerata Baltica Festival in Jūrmala Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica had the pleasure to perform three concerts at Dzintari Concert Hall with wide range of programs, outstanding soloists and dedicated musicianship.

The  opening concert of the festival, called “Eastern Border”, invited the audience to remember those composers from Romania and Czech Republic who spent most of their time in exile. George Enescu, the most renowned Romanian composer, worked in Paris, Boston and New York and Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu  was forced to flee to Portugal and the United States of America. While Polish-Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg and Romanian composer Dinu Lipatti were never banned or exiled, their lives were full of struggle: Weinberg’s music was ignored for many years by his contemporaries and almost completely forgotten by ours. Only in the recent years his music takes the rightful place on a big stage. Dinu Lipatti was broken by life itself, first through the Pianist losing the movement of his fingers, followed by the passing of this great man. In our first concert we pay a tribute to these remarkable personalities with the soloists Gidon Kremer, Džeraldas Bidva, Sergejs and Andrejs Osokins and conductor Fuad Ibrahimov.

The second concert named “Bach and Baltics”, a concert program that was nominated for Lielā mūzikas balva 2018 as a concert of the year, showed a deep connection between Bach and Baltics through the magical fingers of celebrated Latvian organist Iveta Apkalna. Gidon Kremer, and Kremerata Baltica, conducted by Fuad Ibrahimov gave the world premiere to the piece by Latvian composer Andris Dzenītis “Leaves Leaving Leipzig”. Kremerata Baltica performed Bach’s masterpiece Chaconne from Partita for Violin No. 2, arranged for string orchestra by Gidon Kremer and Victor Kissine and also prepared the third part of the concert – chamber music evening with Martinu’s Duo for two Violins, Dmitri Kurliandski’s Quartet “Dolce Stil Nuovo” and Shostakovich’s String Octet.

For the closing concert we prepared a very special evening – Latvian premiere of our project “Chronicle of Current Events”, developed by Gidon Kremer and group of visual artists from Russia: director Artem Firsanov, scriptwriter Valeriy Pecheykin and cameraman Aleksey Venzos under the curatorship of Kirill Serebrennikov. The project is an artist’s opposition to power and is dedicated to the centenary of  Mieczysław Weinberg’s birth. It was an inspiration to share the stage with the soloists Gidon KremerIeva Parsa and Georgijs Osokins! Chronicle of Current Events is created in co-production with Holland FestivalFrankfurt Alte OperBerlin KonzerthausLeipzig Gewandhaus and Kremerata Baltica.

We are very grateful to our audience that supports us during Kremerata Baltica Festival each year and we hope to see you again next year!