The album "Gratitude" of saxophone music by Ēriks Ešenvalds has just been released, recorded by saxophone player Oskars Petrauskis under the independent label "Prima Classic". Several Latvian musicians participated in the recording of the album - organist Liene Andreta Kalnciema, singer Marina Rebeka, and also the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra.
Together with the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra under the baton of British conductor Douglas Bostock, Petrauskis has recorded Ēriks Ešenvalds' Saxophone concerto "Arctic Visions. The Sea" for his new album. This concerto, which Ešenvalds once wrote specifically for Petrauskis, had its world premiere at the 28th Liepāja International Stars Festival, performed by the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra with Gintaras Rinkevičius conducting.
The saxophone concerto “Arctic Visions. Sea” is the third part of Ešenvalds’s trilogy dedicated to the interaction between northern nature, folklore, and human experience. The composer was inspired to write it during his expedition to the Arctic region, a journey that provided the impetus for all the works in the cycle, including the clarinet concerto Arctic Night Visions (2012) and the multimedia symphony Northern Lights (2015) for choir and symphony orchestra. By the way, the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra also participated in the premieres of these parts of the trilogy.
Ešenvalds’s music has been recorded on more than 50 albums, including nine solo albums. Now, Oskars Petrauskis’s recording Gratitude joins them, dedicated to Ešenvalds’s works for saxophone.
His work combines northern lights, mythological stories, flowing melodies, rich harmonies, and thoughtful, clearly perceptible forms. His compositions are imbued with a sense of scenic spatiality and vertical musical movement, taking listeners beyond the everyday — from the concrete to the infinite and from the worldly to the transcendental.
‘‘ Oskars brings his own cosmos and clear musical vision — every phrase is consciously crafted with precise intensity and mood. He is an outstanding professional with amazing improvisational skills — he not only performs, but also creates a story. I tell him my idea, and he listens with respect, adding his own presence and interpretation,’’ Ēriks Ešenvalds says about his collaboration with Oskars Petrauskis. In an interview with Latvian Radio 3 he expresses: “Oskar's personality – to call him an excellent musician is not enough. His artistic colors, the way he paints a phrase, his articulation, the way he sees what the composer has written – he paints very vividly, with feeling, in a unique way. It speaks to you.”
During more than ten years of collaboration between Petrauskis and Ešenvalds, an absolutely new repertoire for the saxophone has been created – both the Saxophone Concerto and compositions with organ and voice. Petrauskis tells Latvian Radio 3 about the new album: "I dedicate my life to the saxophone, it has taken me many places and taught me a lot, and I really want to pass on something of a very high quality, not quantitative, as many of us try to create an album every year today."
“Gratitude” is available internationally from November 21st on all major digital streaming and download platforms.
You can also listen to the recording on SPOTIFY.
