From July 12 to 18, the Dzintari Concert Hall will host the Jurmala Festival for the twelfth year in a row with a magnificent and diverse program. The most outstanding domestic and foreign artists will perform in Jurmala throughout the week, including the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra in two concerts.
On July 14 at 7:00 p.m., audiences can look forward to a true celebration of piano music featuring the outstanding pianists of the Osokins dynasty. The most beautiful piano music repertoire, together with Sergejs, Andrejs and Georgijs Osokini, will be performed by the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Guntis Kuzma. The concert program includes the brightest parts of classicist and romantic piano concertos from Beethoven's early masterpieces to Brahms's primordial monumentalism. The concert will culminate with Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto for Three Pianos, three outstanding pianists and a symphony orchestra merging into the harmony of classical music.
Andrejs and Georgijs have earned international recognition for their pianism, while their father Sergejs is regarded as one of Latvia’s most respected musicians. All three have received Latvia’s highest state award in music, the Grand Music Award, and together they have become a hallmark of pianistic excellence both in Latvia and abroad.
In 2016, the New Year’s concert “Three Osokins and Opera”, broadcast live from the Latvian National Opera, was streamed by the German online television channel Klassik.TV. The Osokins’ joint concerts are deeply considered musical events, always featuring the finest golden repertoire of piano music and masterpieces of classical music in original arrangements for two and even three pianos.
But the next evening, July 15, at 7:00 p.m., the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of conductor Atvars Lakstīgala, will meet pianist Vestards Šimkus, singers Ieva Kerēvica, Ance Krauze and Daumants Kalniņš, as well as saxophonist Oskars Petrauskis on the stage of the Dzintari Concert Hall. The concert “Sun. Thunder. Jūrmala. Mārtiņš Brauns, Raimonds Pauls, Rihards Dubra and Kārlis Lācis” is dedicated to the Latvian cultural canon and contemporary masterpieces. The first part of the concert will feature piano virtuosity on a symphonic scale, while the second part of the concert will feature the legendary melodies of Raimonds Pauls and Mārtiņš Brauns, beloved by the audience.
This will be an evening of Latvian composers’ music, where symphonic grandeur meets vivid melodies, voices, and strong artistic personalities. The first part of the concert features excerpts from Kārlis Lācis’s Latvian Symphony, offering a dynamic and modern reflection on Latvian identity, alongside Rihards Dubra’s Liepāja Concerto No. 3 for Piano and Orchestra – an emotionally charged and powerful work.
In the second part, audiences are invited on a musical journey through the golden treasury of Latvian popular music. Listeners will hear songs by Raimonds Pauls that have become an integral part of several generations’ collective memory, marked by gentle melancholy in Silent Song and Autumn Ember, as well as resilience and light in Defiance and The Long Road Through the Dunes. The programme is further enriched by Mārtiņš Brauns’s powerful, symbol-laden works, including Sing With Me, Maiden of the People and Sun, Thunder, Daugava, where music transforms into a shared emotional experience.
This concert promises a rich and inspiring evening, bringing together academic symphonic scope and songs that live on in Latvia’s cultural memory.
Tickets for the Jūrmala Festival concerts can be purchased through the "Biļešu Paradīze" network.
The festival is organized by the Dzintari Concert Hall.
