From Mežaparks to Lucavsala or vice versa
In the concert at Mežaparka’s Great Stage, “Melo-M Mega Orchestra” will offer an ambitious cello orchestra sound and a musically colorful program. “We are pleased that after the pandemic break there is again the opportunity to play music together for such a large group of cellists, as well as the opportunity to please and surprise the concert audience. In a sense, this concert is also like a social project, which especially inspires the younger cellists and gives them the opportunity to perform on the big stage,” says the leader of “Melo-M”, Kārlis Auzāns.
“Melo-M Mega Orchestra” is an ambitious and unique project that started in 2015 on the initiative of Kārļis, bringing together more than 50 Latvian cellists of different generations. For the first time, such a mega-composition performed at the 2015 New Year’s concerts in Riga Congress House, the concerts were also held in 2017 and 2019. “We had an established tradition of meeting [Vecgada lielkoncertos] every other year in the House of Congress, but last year external conditions did not allow it to be done, and we do not yet know what will happen this winter,” explains Kārlis. “We realized that in order to gather such a large number of people on the stage, we need to use the summer, and Mežaparka’s Great Stage seemed like the most suitable place for that.” He is not particularly worried about the overlap of the big concert with the “Positivus Festival” events: “I think the audience won’t listen much. There has been a break of two and a half years, young people have wanted to play, and there is a great response from the musicians. This is primary. In addition, those who want to “Positivus” can come to our concert and then drive to Lucavsala, where nothing will be over yet.”
Perhaps there will be as many as a hundred cellists on stage
Long before the concert, it was announced that more than 80 cellists from all over Latvia will perform as part of the orchestra together with the musicians of the trio “Melo-M”, representing different generations – there will be both children and young people who are currently learning to play the cello, as well as students, graduates and professionals musicians. In addition, two outstanding percussionists – Miķelis Vīte and Mārtiņš Miļevskis – will join the “Melo-M” trio. It looks like the number of cellists will maybe reach the magic number of 100: in the conversation held a week ago, Kárlis mentioned that 87 cellists have already confirmed their participation in the event, which means that together with the men of “Melo-M” there will be 90, but there are still some there is time for additional applications. “There are from Daugavpils, Liepāja, Riga and other cities – cellists will come from all over Latvia. We are very open [uzņemšanā orķestra sastāvā], we don’t have strict restrictions – of course, everyone has to evaluate their own abilities,” says Kārlis. According to him, if it is felt that the cellist is an absolute beginner, or it is felt that he will not be able to “pull the repertoire”, the teachers are gently told about it, but otherwise – complete openness and democracy.
The cello is a powerful instrument – expensive in both body and sound, and those who have been to the “Melo-M Mega Orchestra” concerts in the Congress House will definitely confirm this. Only – how will this orchestra manage to fill and populate the huge area of the Mežaparka Grand Stage? “We will not sit in the tribune as choristers – a separate stage will be built for us, because we do not have suitable seats for choristers. The specificity of our instrument is that it requires a much larger area,” Kārlis explains, keeping the rest a secret for now.
The hits of the young stars are not really suitable for cellos
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The performance of “Melo-M Mega Orchestra” is also expected to perform well-known and popular compositions: compositions by Latvian composers Mārtiņš Braun, Imantas Kalniņš and Jānis Lūsēnas, compositions from the groups “Pink Floyd”, “Coldplay”, “The Beatles”, “Mumford And Son” etc. (even Marilyn Manson’s!) repertoire. There will also be special surprises – the premiere of Kārlis Auzān’s composition “Together we can”, created especially for this orchestra, and familiar songs from the song festival repertoire. “We have literally grown up with our repertoire in these years – new and new compositions are coming every year, and this program will consist of what we have already played, but a large part will be new compositions,” says the leader of “Melo-M” . “Since we will be on the stage, I had the feeling that we must also play something that would be associated with a classic holiday repertoire of songs, so it will also include, for example, Imanta Kalniņa’s “Pūt, vējini!” and several more premieres.”
Recent music trends show that classicists are also increasingly trying to include arrangements of hits from the latest generation of stars in their repertoire. For example, just now at the “Rīgas ritmi” festival, five jazz “stars” of the highest order, united in the “Modern Standards Supergroup” project, performed shamelessly even versions of the hits of the Korean pop group “BTS” and Dua Lipa. “The large cello line-up requires monumental compositions – it is a large orchestra that has a symphonic sound,” Kārlis gently explains. “But today’s current music often consists of phrases, in which there is not much of music – it mostly consists only of rhythms and sound. A large cello orchestra requires something very substantial in its repertoire.”
The pandemic has cut a hole in the growth of musicians
Has the time of the pandemic affected the number of cellists and the desire of young people to learn to play this instrument? “Of course, it has had an influence,” Kārlis does not deny. “Many music school pedagogues have thanked me very much that we are doing something like this at all, because during the pandemic, the motivation of young people had dropped significantly and this interest in live music and playing instruments must somehow be revived. And we see that it [megaorķestra projekts] works, and works quite well,” says the cellist.
“This is also one of the main ones [koncerta] goals – to allow everyone who participates in it to feel this sense of community and the power of the big stage. A cellist who studies at a music school and then at an academy, but then begins to play, for example, in an opera orchestra, may never in his life get on such a big stage with full sound and lighting and in the ranks of an audience that actively sympathizes with everything on stage to what is happening [kā popmūzikas koncertos]. It’s like a little hook that we put in their mouth so that young people have more motivation to learn and do something in the field of music in general. Therefore, the event also has a bit of a social function.”
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We will play music together with Ukrainians at the Freedom Monument
The men of “Melo-M” have other plans besides the mega-orchestra. “We just warmed up for Chris Norman’s concert in Lithuania – a very powerful event for about seven thousand people! It was a very cool event, we also really liked it,” says Kārlis. On the other hand, on August 14, the trio will perform at the legendary concert stage “Pūt, vējini!”. “We will perform “Pūt, vējīnīs” for the first time – we have a special concert program called “Melodijas Liepājai”. There will be compositions from several theater performances that I have written for Liepāja theater, there will also be “Līvu” songs, also Imants Kalniņš – melodies related to Liepāja.”
But even earlier, “Melo-M” will be seen and heard right here in the center of Riga. Already last August, they tried themselves in a new role, as if unexpectedly appearing in various places in Riga and playing. This year, these spontaneous concerts will take a slightly different direction. “We have an interesting project in mind – this summer there will be some concerts at the Freedom Monument together with professional Ukrainian musicians who have returned here from the war in Ukraine. We got to know them and thought, why not make a joint project with them?! And precisely very symbolic, at the Freedom Monument, such as “pop-up” concerts as part of “Riga Summer”, says Kārlis. “The first two appearances will be already on July 20, then also on July 27 and July 29, when we will randomly appear in the afternoon [pie pieminekļa].” Sounds intriguing!
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