Sixth concert of the festival - "THREE"

26.03.2023., 17:00, Riga Latvian Society House Gold Hall

I
Ieva Saliete (harpsichord)
Artūrs Noviks (accordion)
(Latvia)


Jānis Petraškevičs (1978)

Neparalēles (premiere)
Juste Janulyte (1982)
Harp is a chord
Linda Leimane (1989)
Geometric Counterpoint
Mirjam Tally (1976)
Event Horizon
Indra Riše (1961)
Marsh-Souls

II
String Quartet Chordos (Lithuania)
Ieva Sipaitytė (violin)
Vaida Paukštienė (violin)
Robertas Bliškevičius (viola)
Arnas Kmieliauskas (cello)


Selga Mence (1953)

String Quartet
I Creation of a melody
II Threads and knots
III Thoughts
IV Movement
Vykintas Baltakas (1972)
b(ell tree) for string quartet
Helena Tulve (1972)
Nec ros, nexc pluvia… for string quartet
Kristupas Bubnelis (1995)
Ad Infinitum… for string quartet

III
Anna-Liisa Eller (kannel)
Taavi Kerikmäe (clavichord, synthesizer, electronics)
(Estonia)


David Kellner (1670–1748)
Aria
Vaida Striaupaité-Beinariené (1977)
Reflections (premiere for the version for the kannel and electronics)
Johann Valentin Meder (1649-1719)
Suite für Cembalo c-moll
Allemande
Sarabande
Courante
Gigue
Jēkabs Nīmanis (1980)
Tuvošanās (premiere)
Helena Tulve (1972)
Beholder version for kannel and electronics
David Kellner
Chaconne
Three concerts in one concert. Three perspectives on contemporary chamber music. Three ensembles - one from Latvia, one from Lithuania, one from Estonia.
First, a duo of virtuosic and sensitive musicians - harpsichordist Ieva Saliete and accordionist Artūrs Noviks - present a program featuring Linda Leimane's “Geometric Counterpoint” for harpsichord and electronics, "Harp is a Chord" for harpsichord and accordion by Justė Janulytė, "Event Horizon" by Mirjam Tally, “Marsh-Souls" for accordion solo by Indra Riše, and the premiere of a new work for harpsichord and accordion by Jānis Petraškevičs.
Then the Chordos String Quartet from Lithuania will perform. Its permanent repertoire includes the highest quality string quartets of the 20th and 21st centuries, from Ravel and Szymanowski to Riley, Crumb and Ligeti; as well as dozens of works by Lithuanian composers. This time the program includes Selga Mence, Kristupas Bubnelis, Helena Tulve and Vykintas Baltakas.
The three-part concert will be rounded off by a unique electroacoustic duo from Estonia: Anna-Liisa Eller (kannel) and Taavi Kerikmae (electronics). This concert focuses on Estonian music composed for the ensemble, but will also feature a new work for the duo written by Jēkabs Nīmanis.

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About the festival:
Since 2021 “Baltic Music Days” has been organized by the Composer Unions of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Each year the festival takes place in a different Baltic country. The first festival, organized by the Estonian Composers Union, took place online. The second festival was hosted in Kaunas, the 2022 European Capital of Culture. This year, 2023, the festival will take place from March 18-31 in Cēsis and Rīga, Latvia. Nine concerts are planned for the festival, including the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra performing at Cēsis Concert Hall, the State Chamber Orchestra “Sinfonietta Rīga” performing at the Great Guild Hall in Rīga, and the Latvian Radio Choir performing at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music.
A particularly special highlight of the festival will be a performance by the world-famous percussion ensemble “Les Percussions de Strasbourg” on March 19, at Cēsis Concert Hall.
The festival as a whole will include 11 world premieres by Latvian composers.

This year, the festival’s overall theme is “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”.
We have borrowed this theme from the title of Czech/French writer Milan Kundera’s well-known novel. We came to this idea at the war’s start — a war, which unfortunately has not yet ended. A war, which has seeped into our daily lives, into our subconscious; a war, which makes us shiver in compassion and demands that we help as much as possible.
“… for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes”*
Amid the war and the empathy, life and music continue, offering opportunities for sensitivity and joy. It is unbearably heavy and light at the same time. We have asked the festival’s composers to reflect in their new compositions: is heaviness truly terrible, and lightness wonderful? Is lightness positive and heaviness negative? For the moment, it is only clear that the opposition of heaviness and lightness is the most mysterious and meaningful of all opposites.

Come and listen to it with us!

*Milan Kundera, “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” 1984.

Tickets: www.bilesuparadize.lv
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The festival is organized by Latvian Composers Union and supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation, Baltic Contemporary Music Network, Geothe-Institut Riga, Latvian Concerts, Riga Latvian Society, Concert Hall "Cēsis", Latvian Radio 3 "Klasika", Riga Cathedral