Summer evening of music also at the Liepāja Concert Hall

The orchestra began its summer musical adventures in Liepāja in early July, meeting Latvian violinist Kristīne Balanas and French pianist Lucas Debargue on the stage of the “Pūt, vējiņi!” concert garden. But on August 23, the orchestra will celebrate the culmination of the summer with the music of Jānis Lūsēns in two concerts there.

In order not to lose the "Liepāja Summer" chamber music tradition, on August 22, in the Dzintars Jurgelaitis Hall of the Liepāja Concert Hall, Liepāja Symphony Orchestra conductor and clarinetist Guntis Kuzma, together with violinist Elīna Bukša and pianist Agnesi Egliņa, will perform a delicate trio program.

Three bright personalities will meet on stage, three equal soloists will offer listeners a richly coloured and rhythmically sparkling journey, from Szymanowski’s poetic Myths to the tension of Bartók’s modernism and Schoenfield’s scintillating klezmer themes.

“Agnese Egliņa and I have been united by a musical friendship of almost twenty years, so each joint project is a special joy for me. This time, it is also the beginning of a new journey: our first meeting on stage with Elīna Bukša – a violinist whom both Agnese and I have long admired and greatly respected for her musical personality and high craftsmanship,” says clarinetist Guntis Kuzma.

The concert will feature the world premiere of Ilona Breģe’s Clarinet Sonata. Ilona Breģe is one of the most distinctive voices in Latvian contemporary music. As the composer puts it, she is not afraid to be emotional in her music. She is drawn to the very moment of creation—this is how she finds her balance again and clears her thoughts as her experience of the outside world transforms into music. Then she feels strong again.

Polish composer Karol Szymanowski's "Myths" for violin and piano will also be performed - three poems that draw the listener into images of the ancient world. The characteristic "triangle" of the clarinet, violin and piano ensemble will become a laboratory of rhythm and temperament in Béla Bartók's virtuoso dialogues "Contrasts", inspired by Hungarian and Balkan folk music.

In Paul Schoenfield’s work, the klezmer tradition appears not merely as a quotation, but as a living impulse: sparkling rhythms, “speaking” inflections, and theatrical expressivity, alternating with lyrical episodes. Schoenfield skilfully merges academic craftsmanship with the freedom of folk music, leaving room for the ensemble’s spontaneity and a flash of humour as well.

“I am drawn to the diametrically opposed contrasts of this program – from the poetic mystery of Szymanowski to the temperament of Bartók, the joy of discovering a new work by Breģe and the sparkling joy of life by Schoenfield – this trio embodies the passion, vitality and dance of the klezmer tradition,” says Guntis Kuzma about the upcoming concert. “For me, chamber music is a space for playing, where I can not only express myself with my beloved clarinet, but also talk through it, listen to the exchange of ideas, hopefully always unpredictable, always anew.”

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