Sinfonietta Rīga’s 17th Season Concludes with Brilliant Performance in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Retirement of Concertmaster

Brilliant performance in Amsterdam’s Royal “Concertgebouw” concert hall, concertmaster’s retirement, new and long-standing collaboration concerts. This is how the 17th season of “Sinfonietta Rīga” can be briefly described, which the orchestra concluded on June 3.

“Music always lifts a person a little above the ground, so it must have been intended and born. The concert with Lorenz Borrāni here was simply, in my opinion, one of the really highest flights for the orchestra. For me personally, it was Romitelli’s video opera “Index of Metals” in Liepāja , it’s a really complicated work that you have the opportunity to play maybe once in your life, so it has a special responsibility and value,” says the artistic director and conductor of “Sinfonietta Rīga”, Normunds Shne.

Normunds Schne is a conductor who is able to skillfully see, hear and arrange seemingly incompatible music together in one program, which creates surprisingly organic compositions. Thus, at the end of the season, we heard the opus of Joseph Haydn, Conlon Nankarov and Pavel Karmanov in the orchestra.

“We planned for this ending to be really grand and deep and bright, a concert with its own drama from peace and happiness to real drama and tragedy. That’s probably how life is today,” notes the conductor.

The climax was Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, which is one of the most technically challenging tasks for pianists. It was interpreted by Behzods Abduraimovs with an almost supernatural force and harshness characteristic of today:

“This music seems to me to be almost outside of our world. I always compare it to Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto – I think that Rachmaninoff allows you to experience all the emotions that a person can experience, but in this Prokofiev concerto it is something even more, even wider, there there’s a whole universe. And when you’re around very professional musicians playing with dedication, it’s easy to interpret that music.”

Several performances are planned for “Sinfonietta Rīga” in the summer, but the opening of the 18th season is scheduled for September 22.

“We look with anticipation, but also with concern, because the situation is not as easy for us as it might seem from the outside, because we are completely short of money, I don’t know what will be there, I can’t say much about the next season. I hope that everything what is planned will happen,” admits Sinfonietta Rīga’s artistic director and conductor Normunds Shne with concern.

“I really like being with my orchestra, it’s really a real happiness, which, I hope, I can really appreciate. What more can a conductor want – he doesn’t make any noise himself, he needs an orchestra, like-minded people, his instrument. And such a privilege that it is a real gem created by his own hands, it is a really great gift,” says the conductor.

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