Friday, 14 September 2018 at 19:00

Cēsis Concert Hall, Great Auditorium

DUO LAUMA SKRIDE & DANIEL MÜLLER-SCHOTT

Daniel Müller-Schott /cello, Germany/

Lauma Skride /piano/

This programme by two brilliant and internationally acclaimed musicians ‒ the Latvian pianist Lauma Skride and the German cello player Daniel Müller-Schott ‒ will feature pieces by one of the Viennese greats, Ludwig van Beethoven, side by side with the romantically charged music of Robert Schumann and Frédéric Chopin.

Müller-Schott, one of the world’s best cellists of his generation ‒ ‘a fearless player with technique to burn’, according to the New York Times ‒ has performed with the best European and American orchestras. The career of the pianist Lauma Skride has seen her perform at a number of most prestigious concert halls, appearing both as a soloist and with other renowned musicians. Skride is also a winner of several internationally prestigious music awards.

Saturday, 15 September 2018 at 14:00

Cēsis Concert Hall, the INSIGNIA art gallery

TANGO FOR CELLO AND VIBRAPHONE

Tatjana Rediko /cello/

Andrei Pushkarev /vibraphone/

Once again, Cello Cēsis surprises with unique programmes and unexpected arrangements. Last year’s edition featured an opportunity to enjoy a recital by a cello and saxophone quartet; this time around, we invite you to have a taste of the charming interplay between a cello and a vibraphone.

The programme is musically centred around the theme of TANGO. Just like two partners become one in this dance, so do the cello and the vibraphone, so very different in their musical colour and playing technique, will come together to form a new emotional whole, expanding each other’s abilities and creating a unique palette of sound, one that has never been touched before.
The programme has been mounted by Andrei Pushkarev, the long-time soloist of the world-famous Kremerata Baltica orchestra in association with the cellist Tatjana Rediko. It features both original music by Pushkarev and new arrangements of pieces by Eugène Ysaÿe and Astor Piazzolla, created by the two artists especially for the needs of this special duet. Cēsis is hosting the premiere of this programme, steeped in the characteristic passion and sensuous energy of tango.

Saturday, 15 September 2018 at 17:00

Cēsis Concert Hall, Cinema Hall

ROSTROPOVICH: THE GENIUS OF THE CELLO

Documentary

Festival Cello Cēsis gives the opportunity to watch on the big screen the BBC movie about one of the most famous cellists of all times Mistislav Rostropovich.

Film will will be in English with Latvian subtitles.

Saturday, 15 September 2018 at 19:00

Great Auditorium

ROCK STAR OF CLASSICAL MUSIC GIOVANNI SOLLIMA

Giovanni Sollima /cello, Italy/

Ēriks Kiršfelds /cello/

Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra

Conductor Modestas Pitrėnas

The Italian cello player Giovanni Sollima is a classical musician who enjoys the status of a rock star, a Jimi Hendrix of the orchestral world who has breathed new life into the musical instrument familiar to the world for over 300 years ‒ the cello. His music is much loved by a wide audience, from confirmed aficionados of academic music to heavy metal fans. Sollima conquers the hearts of them all! His musical pieces are rich in Mediterranean rhythms and very Italian melodies. He is bringing to Cēsis two of his compositions ‒ Folktales and Violoncellez, vibrez!.

Born in Sicily to a family of musicians, the composer and cellist studied in his native Palermo and later ‒ in Stuttgart and the Salzburg Mozarteum. Sollima has appeared with some of the greatest musicians and conductors both at the world’s best concert halls and completely non-academic venues.
Sollima writes for both acoustic and electronic instruments, frequently built with his own hands. His career has seen him work with giants like Peter Greenaway, Robert Wilson, John Turturro and others.

Of the cello, Sollima says:

‘When I was born my father used to play in a cello/piano duo with my first teacher Giovanni Perriera, so the cello was a very strong ‘presence’ for me from a very early age and – as my mother tells me – I spent hours listening to rehearsals, only crying and screaming when those rehearsals ended! The cello [seemed] irresistibly fascinating for me, Maybe it was an obsession too... [..]Important for me also is even the position the cello assumes with one’s own body – one covers about 80% of it. [..] I don’t regard myself as a ‘real’ composer (in the traditional sense): I am a cellist and I work on the cello. My approach to composition is more like improvisation, and I proceed from block to block improvising, then I write it down in notation.’

Sunday, 16 September 2018 at 13:00

Cēsis Concert Hall, Great Auditorium

CELLO TALES WITH DAGAMBA. THE DESERT

A concert production for children

A concert at a faraway desert settlement awaits musicians of the DAGAMBA cello band. It is there that they make the acquaintance of the desert-dwelling Berber people, experience a powerful desert storm and heat and see a mirage of a verdant oasis. But above all there is the scorching merciless desert sun.

The concert production will be an invitation for the young listeners to take part in a musically and visually magnificent adventure ‒ first listening to and then also watching the unusual events experienced by the DAGAMBA musicians in the desert. The young concert-goers will be offered an opportunity to contribute to the concert, creating the atmosphere of a sweltering sun-flooded desert.