Guntars FREIBERGS, percussion

Juris ĀZERS, percussion

Sinfonietta Rīga Chamber Orchestra

Programme:

J. S. Bach, Harpsichord Concerto in D minor (arranged for two marimbas)

György Ligeti, Concert Românesc

Avner Dorman, Spices. Perfumes. Toxins

The tenth season at Cēsis Concert Hall sees two percussion virtuosi – winner of a 2023 Grand Music Award Guntars Freibergs and the Berlin-based Juris Āzers, member of the unitedberlin ensemble of contemporary music led by Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra Vladimir Jurowski – start their residency in Cēsis.

Pulsating energy and a hypnotic vibe of interplay that liberates the body and excites the mind: this formula describes not just the artistic tandem of Freibergs-Āzers but also the programme the two musicians have created with Normunds Šnē and Sinfonietta Rīga Chamber Orchestra for Cēsis Concert Hall.

While the baroque grand master Johann Sebastian Bach never left his native Germany during his lifetime and managed to affirm his faith in God even in his secular works, the maestro of Hungarian avant-garde György Ligeti spent most of his life abroad, first in Austria, then in Germany. There his revolutionary ideas mixed with nostalgic longing for the sound codes of his native country, transforming the composer, secular to the bone in every other way, into a spiritually reflecting soul. Roots and identity are also essential to Avner Dorman, who grew up in Israel but has been living on the other side of the ocean for many years, dazzling with intensely colourful yet achingly yearning scores in his music.

The three great masters share an excellent technique of composition and a relentless inquisitiveness of spirit, as well as extremely vivid individual musical language and enjoyment of play. These things also unite the particular pieces featured in this programme: Bach’s incredibly popular Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, which we will hear arranged for two marimbas, Ligeti’s Concert Românesc, a piece interspersed with Romanian folk melodies and even blacklisted at one point on the pretext of ‘political incorrectness’, and Dorman’s breathtaking ‘Spices, Perfumes, Toxins!’ concerto that is extraordinarily successful at conjuring up a whole intoxicating world of aromas and flavours.

The forthcoming concerts of the duo of Guntars Freibergs and Juris Āzers during their residency at Cēsis Concert Hall will present programmes dominated by a vast range of percussion instruments, powerful and complex rhythms and an unexpected synergy of music and visual arts, as well as encounters with world-renowned musicians and composers.