At the season closing masterpieces of 20th century

With a concert to be held on 12 May, the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra will end its first season under the direction of the chief conductor Guntis Kuzma by performing music by Richard Strauss, Sergei Prokofiev and Gundaris Pone at the Concert Hall “Lielais dzintars”. Special guest: pianist Anton Lyakhovsky.

The opening concert of the 142nd season of the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra received much attention – it was appriciated with the Latvian Public Media Annual Award for Culture “The Kilogram of Culture”. Guntis Kuzma, the artistic director of the orchestra, intends to end the season just as powerfully, by including two musical highlights of the early 20th century in the concert programme – Richard Strauss's symphonic poem “Macbeth” and Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.3 featuring Anton Lyakhovsky as soloist.

Sergei Prokofiev is often called one of the best composers of the 20th century. Presence of his works in Guntis Kuzma's first season as the chief conductor of the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra was also significant, since Guntis Kuzma's suite from the ballet “Romeo and Juliet” was performed at the opening of the 142nd concert season.

At the end of the season expressive vitality will flow from Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No.3, where the composer has managed to retain balanced cooperation between the soloist and the orchestra. Unlike many examples of Prokofiev's predecessors' piano concertos, the orchestra goes beyond the role of accompaniment to take a very active part in the performance of this piece.

Concert soloist Anton Lyakhovsky is no stranger to the Latvian public, because some time ago he participated in the Liepāja International Star Festival, where he performed in a piano duet with Toms Ostrovskis and was engaged in other projects as well.

“I really like warm, hospitable Latvian public and good concert halls. Besides, it's always nice to come back to work with musicians you've already met: when you are willing to create something together, personal contact is very important,” Anton Lyakhovsky admitted in an interview to Latvian Radio 3 “Classics” radio station.

Richard Straussis the author of ten symphonic poems. These serve as an unusually diverse acknowledgement of the genre in musical expression and style, symbolically marking the boundary between the romantic era of the 19th century and the modernity of the 20th century.

Along with the two foreign master-minds, music by the exiled Latvian composer who started school in Liepāja, one of our most prominent modernists, Gundaris Pone, will be played. He is a laureate of a number of international composition competitions and he was a professor of music theory and composition at the State University of New York at New Paltz. His work La Serenissima is a love confession for the composer's much adored Venice and for the Italian woman named Mariolina, who became Pone's spouse. It is likely that in Latvia La Serenissima will be played for the first time.

Tickets for the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra concerts can be purchased at “Biļešu paradīze” ticket offices.

The Concert is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, the State Cultural Capital Foundation and Liepāja City. 

NEWS