On September 10 at the Latgale Embassy GORS and on September 11 at the Grand Guild pianist Vestards Šimkus and the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ainars Rubikis will play the Piano Concerto composed in 1868 by Edvards Griegs.
This work has been in the repertoire of Vestards Šimkus for ten years and it was staged for a concert at the Barcelona Palace of Music, where he had to perform as the winner of the Maria Canals International Piano Competition.
Vestards Šimkus: “Grieg’s piano concert actually lives in my heart much, much earlier, because when I was about nine years old, I heard this piano concert for the first time completely by accident. At the time, our great pianist Liene Circene together with the Garden School Symphony Orchestra.The rehearsals took place in the Garden School hall and I, as a little boy, just walked past the hall, the door was open and I heard Liene play her first strokes. very shy boy, so I didn’t ask any passer-by what it was that was going on there, but I kept in mind its first sounds. Then I realized that this composer is very, very interested in me.
In fact, it was because of this composition that I started to fall in love with music and piano playing.
It was really a very, very important time for me, because until then I was rather encouraged to exercise, I didn’t listen to music much, but this piano concert completely broke my heart. And yet I haven’t played it myself for many years, now I can’t even say why. For a long time I have deliberately avoided very popular compositions in my repertoire, but ten years ago this moment came. “
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