Sounds of Liepāja at Rundāle Palace

Last weekend the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra took all music lovers to the annual musical adventure “The Sounds of Liepāja at Rundāle Palace”. This year’s festival featured three events, linking culture and art history from the antiquity to the present day.

The festival was opened in the Golden Hall of Rundāle Palace with a concert talk "The Ancient World and the Present – Inherited and Lost", moderated by music historian Orests Silabriedis, with art historian Imants Lancmanis and philosopher Uldis Tīrons. Mozart’s “Jupiter”, a symphony arbitrarily given its name at the beginning of the 19th century, was used as a springboard for the conversation.

Musical interludes were provided by flutist Reinis Lapa and harpist Elizabeta Lāce, who performed preludes by Marcel Tournier and miniatures by Francois Couperin, together with the premiere of Ernests Valts Circenis' new composition in antique style.

Following the concert talk, the audience made their way to one of the most beautiful and luxurious rooms of the Palace – the White Hall, to be treated to the glorious world of symphonic sounds by Johannes Brahms and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, evoked by the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra and violinist Līga Baltābola under the baton of the conductor Guntis Kuzma. The concert featured Brahms' Concerto for Violin and Orchestra and Mozart's Symphony No 41, named after Jupiter.

Traditionally, the festival culminated with a gala night concert in the majestically illuminated French Garden of Rundāle Palace, enlivened by the sounds of Johann Sebastian Bach and Benjamin Britten, performed by violinist Gunārs Mūrnieks and cellist Klāvs Jankevics, taking the audience on a journey through time and space, discovering the façade of Rundāle Palace and the French Garden fountain in new colours and ambience. The audience was delighted to experience the first four movements of Bach's Violin Partita D -minor: Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue, as well as Britten's Cello Suite No. 1.

The Liepāja Symphony Orchestra will give several more high-profile concerts in Liepāja this summer. In the open-air concert garden "Pūt, vējiņi!" on 26 August at 19.00 (with the extra concert at 14.00), the orchestra will have a symphonic conversation with one of the greatest Latvian composers – Imants Kalniņš, along with guitarist and composer Kaspars Zemītis, and singers Renārs Kaupers, Daumantas Kalniņš and Elza Rozentāle.

Kaspars Zemītis' original music, as well as well-known and beloved songs by Imants Kalniņš - "Viņi dejoja vienu vasaru", "Akāciju palags", "Dūdieviņš", "Elpo" and others will be played at the concert. With Ainārs Rubiķis at the conductor's podium.

Tickets for Liepāja Symphony Orchestra concerts are available at "Biļešu paradīze"

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