January 1 is the day when Latvian Radio 3 “Classics” celebrates his birthday, this year – the twenty-eighth. Every year on this day, a quarter of an hour before the live broadcast of the New Year’s concert from the Great Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna, “Klasikas” director, musicologist Gunda Vaivode summarizes what has been done in the past year and reveals the news of the program in 2024 and highlights the essential parts to be preserved and continued. This time, the editor-in-chief of Latvian Radio 3 has also been invited to the studio Inga the SaxonLR3 music recording producer Anna Weisman and pianist and former resident musician of Latvian Radio Trio Art-i-Shock in the composition Agnes Egliņa.
Gunda Vaivode: An important part of the LR3 program is live broadcasts from concert halls and opera houses both in Latvia and around the world. The year starts with the New Year’s concert in Vienna on January 1, but on January 6 we will go across the ocean to New York.
Inga Saksone: The first live broadcast from the New York Metropolitan Opera will be Giuseppe Verdi’s “Nabucco” with Georga Gagnidzi in the title role and the well-known Ukrainian singer Lyudmila Monastirska as Abigail. The live broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera are really special, because the broadcasting rights for these recordings are one week – you must be able to listen either this Saturday or the next one for sure. Glad we’ll have more of these live shows this year.
Gunda Vaivode: We receive and will receive a lot of concert recordings from Euroradio, and some of them are already here – this is a special concert cycle.
Inga Saksone: The title of the series is “Euroradio offers: The best young musicians”, in which Latvia is represented by pianist Georgijs Osokins.
Europe and the world will have the opportunity to hear a concert in which Georgijs Osokins played Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto together with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Kristina Poska.
There will also be a chance to hear Carl Nilsen’s Fourth Symphony, and it’s nice that these concerts are broadcast in full. This cycle will not only include symphonic music – there are also chamber music concerts, as trios and quartets with the participation of young musicians are offered. The first cycle, which will be played from January 2 to 11, will include competitions between pianists, violinists and one trio. But in the second part, which we will listen to in the spring, there will be both clarinet, flute and viola, as well as a quartet – a different offer. If once upon a time, when “Klasika” started to sound, many admitted that it was like a window to Europe, where we could offer various unknown programs and new composers, then this time it is a selection – a selection of a special orchestra, special musicians and also special music.
Gunda Vaivode: “Klasikas” listeners have always highly appreciated the live broadcasts of the concerts that we broadcast from our own concert halls.
Inga Saksone: Very soon, on January 12, from the Great Guild, we will broadcast a concert of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra with Erik Ešenwald’s Symphony Clouds, Peter Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, in which Daniil Bulajev will be the soloist, and Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony.
We are very much looking forward to Aivi Greter at the conductor’s desk of the LNSO, the news about his success in Europe has already reached us.
Gunda Vaivode: It’s a pleasure, and as you know, Erik Eschenwald is this season’s composer-in-residence at the LNSO.
Inga Saksone: A special event in January, as usual, is the big concert of Latvian symphonic music on the evening of January 19 with several Latvian orchestras, which will also be performed live on “Klasikas”.
Gunda Vaivode: In the list of “Klasikas” cultural programs this year, there are still programs about various fields. Their sound is supported by both the State Cultural Capital Fund and Latvian Radio. At the end of the year, you probably already noticed the program “Ukrainas Pasakalja” dedicated to Ukraine, as well as new recordings of the Latvian Radio Foundation with the participation of Ukrainian musicians, and this learnable and, it turns out, so little-known culture will also appear in the program “Morning Ragtime”.
Inga Saksone: We will continue the morning educational stories in the cycle “Did you know?”, and 15 stories in the New Year will be dedicated to the topic of Ukraine, and the first five – already in February.
Gunda Vaivode: “Klasika” will follow not only concerts, but also award ceremonies in recordings and live broadcasts. On February 16, we will broadcast the Kilograms cultural award ceremony live on Latvian Television, and on March 12 – the Grand Music Award presentation ceremony at the Latvian National Opera.
Gunda Vaivode: Of course, the concerts will also take place here, in the 1st studio of Latvian Radio, so I have invited music recording producer Anna Veismani to visit. The year ended with a big event for all of us – it was the Euroradio Christmas concert in the Ventspils concert hall, Latvia, in cooperation with the State Chamber Orchestra Sinfonietta Rīga and soloists, which was broadcast in many countries.
Anna Veismane: This concert was heard live in 14 countries, and the audience is measured in millions. The way we can present our artists and also the Ventspils organ, in my opinion, is very significant. Latvian music was also played, there were Georg Fridrichs Handelis, Rihards Dubra, Alfrēds Kalniņš and Francis Lists – a colorful and diverse program, for which we are very pleased.
Gunda Vaivode: Such diversity will continue in the Latvian Radio 1 studio this year as well. Surely you already have some plans for the first half of the year?
Anna Veismane: Yes, we will start on January 15 with the music of Latvian composers and the trio Tresensus, in which music is played by the cob player Līga Griķe, the saxophonist Aigars Raumanis and the percussionist Uģis Upenieks.
February will be the time of Ukrainian music, when singers from the State Academic Choir “Latvija”, whose wonderful voices we have already heard in concerts – Natālija Behma, Oksana Nikityuka, Serhiys Zadorozhnyi and Ansis Bētiņš will visit here. They will be joined by harpsichordist Gertrud Yeryomenko. It will be music from different centuries from Ukraine, which has never been heard in “Klasika” before.
On March 18, we will continue with contemporary music – singer Helena Sorokina and double bass player Matīss Eisaks, who lived in Germany, will join in a duo and play solo pieces.
April will be marked by jazz, when we will cooperate with the big band of Latvian Radio and on April 30 we will celebrate the International Jazz Day. On the other hand, in May, the Nyx trio will visit here with music by various Latvian and foreign composers. We will end the season in June with the string quartet of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, whose performance will include Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Imants Zemzaris.
Gunda Vaivode: Isn’t there a shortage of people who want to perform in Studio 1?
Anna Veismane: There is no shortage, which is a great pleasure, because it is a great platform for musicians to show themselves, and we can preserve their performance in the Latvian Radio archive, because it is still possible to listen to and watch all the concerts. In 2023, the premieres of ten Latvian composers have been played in 11 concerts, and several programs have been created especially for Latvian Radio and premiered right here.
Gunda Vaivode: The program Piccolo for musical families and children has been playing for three years, and our colleagues visited 103 very nice families. Agnes, have you managed to hear this program?
Agnese Egliņa: Almost every Sunday. Of course, radio “Klasika” is a great friend of our family and is always played at home. My son Osvald is also a big fan of “Klasikas” and often claps after the pieces. He especially liked Piccolo because he found the jingle very catchy. It was always interesting to see what young people are like and how music, arts and other passions enter every family. How beautiful it is when children spend their supposedly free time with high quality!
Gunda Vaivode: We are now reshaping this program a bit – it will no longer be broadcast as often, and we have planned a series of seven major events in the 1st studio of Latvian Radio – Piccolo master classes. We are very happy that you have agreed to host this program. You have a lot of experience, because you have led various master classes both in Latvia and elsewhere in the world.
Agnese Egliņa: That’s right, I regularly conduct various master classes, especially in the summer. I have met young people of different ages – both those who study at J. Vītola’s Latvian Academy of Music, and younger ones, including those who are still only in elementary school and are at the beginning of their journey. I am very grateful for this invitation as it has been a hidden dream of mine. There is a time when they say that the life and future of music is not quite in danger, but it is necessary to be more interested in it, so unconsciously during this year I often ask young people – what do you like, what should be done to make you more interested in classical music to live because it’s such a beautiful world! There is a lot of evidence that even teaching music in schools greatly develops any young person. Even if he does not choose the path of a professional musician, it still greatly develops both hemispheres of the brain.
I am very glad that we will be working together, and there are a lot of beautiful ideas, how we could talk about music and interest young musicians to choose the beautiful path to the stage.
Gunda Vaivode: There will be not only talking, but also practical action. Each program will feature not only children from at least two music schools, but also one “big” musician who is already a star. They will be various instrumentalists, and definitely a singer as well. How have you imagined what you could do with them?
Agnese Egliņa: Definitely make music! That would be what would always happen. I think this show could be interesting because it’s a more personal path and perspective – not only how we watch the concert and the end result, but more what happens behind the scene, how we get to the end result. I think that not only me, but also this musician who will visit me, will share various secrets of how to mobilize and represent oneself, maybe not only musical details, but also, for example, what to eat before a concert, what stage outfit to choose. I intend to tell some things in the form of recommendations and ask my colleagues how a young person can present himself to the public and just feel good on stage. We know that the stage is quite an adrenaline-pumping event.
It is often said that everyone already plays well at home, but you need to know how to get on stage and play well, so that it pleases not only the audience, but also yourself.
Gunda Vaivode: The main thing is that no one will put marks here, so that there is only one joy and a great hope that it will really give the young musicians something, and it will give not only them, but also their parents and, as always, Piccolo listeners. Thank you, Agnese, we are really looking forward to this nice cooperation and see you in February!
Latvijas Radio invites you to express your opinion about what you heard in the program and supports discussions among listeners, however, reserves the right to delete comments that violate the boundaries of respectful attitude and ethical behavior.
2024-01-02 05:31:11
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