The second “Osokina Freedom Festival @ 152” will take place in Riga from July 7 to 11, during which various Latvian artists will perform in nine concerts with special and also very surprising programs for almost a week.
The opening concert of the festival “Osokina Freedom Festival @ 152” will take place this Wednesday, July 7, evening – a piano music program will be performed by Andrejs Osokins himself, but the special guest of the concert will be Latvian mezzo-soprano Ieva Parša. The program will feature a variety of German romanticism in piano music, the most outstanding compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schuman, Franz Schubert, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johannes Brahms. “Freedom – this is an important word at the moment and not because Brīvības Street is nearby,” pianist Andrejs Osokins pointed out at the press conference at the event at the Piano Salon at 152 Brīvības Street. This salon has been preserved as the venue of the festival also because it has an intimate and sophisticated atmosphere, similar to the 19th century aristocratic salons, where the most famous composers of the time played. Osokin and his creative team also want to conjure such an atmosphere.
On July 8, Denis Paškevičs’ electro-acoustic music project TEN KA will be performed with the program “sonic geometry: structures, patterns and forms”, while in the evening there will be a solo concert by Andrejs Osokins dedicated to German romantic piano music. May 9 will be the day of Andrejs’ wife, the charmingly insane (and insanely charming) singer Katrīna Gupalo: her first solo program will feature her solo program with voice and piano by Imants Kalniņš and the singer herself (several premieres are also promised), but then the most beautiful music and film music will be performed by Katrīna together with Andrejs Osokins. The concert will feature works by Laiza Minelli, Marilyn Monroe, Edith Piaf, Audrey Hepburn, Elvis Presley, George Gershwin and other musicians. “I am terribly pleased that it will all happen, though [sarīkot šādu festivālu] are also extremely complicated – each step taken is met with a hundred different complications, ”admitted Katrīna.
On Saturday, July 10, for the first time, the audience’s favorite actor Ģirts Krūmiņš will meet Andrejs Osokins in a concert performance dedicated to outstanding 20th century personalities in music – emotionally saturated poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva and Velga Krile will interact with Alexander Scriabinov, For compositions by Tchaikovsky, Jānis Mediņš and Lūcija Garūta. It should be noted that Tsvetaeva’s poetry will be read in the original language. This concert performance will be performed in two concerts.
The closing day of the festival on July 11 will be played by violinist Magdalena Geka and pianist Iveta Cālīte with a chamber music concert “Women – Composers”. The two musicians are united by a strong, temperamental and at the same time extremely subtle creative spirit, as well as close ties with the musical life of Paris. With this program, the artists intend to introduce the Riga (and not only) audience to the compositions of various genres of Latvian and European women-composers, which have been created for more than a century and a half, “thus offering great stylistic and emotional diversity”. In the evening concert, the folk and original music program will be performed by virtuoso guitarists Rihards Lībietis and Gints Smukais, who will be joined by Katrīna Gupalo, as well as composer and master of ambient music Raimonds Tiguls. Rihards Lībietis was not even precisely informed about his intentions in this program at least on Monday, but – the main thing in it will be the work of the guitarists themselves, because these guys are currently one of the strongest experts in their profession.
“Despite how difficult and even sometimes challenging it is to organize public events during this pandemic, which have to meet so many different requirements and restrictions, we have chosen to implement this festival this year as well,” said Andrejs Osokins. “We do this because it is extremely important for us to create an opportunity for ourselves and other wonderful musicians to meet the audience in person, to feel the emotions of the audience and the thrill of a real concert.” It should be noted that two types of concerts are planned during the festival: all will be available to listeners with a valid Covid-19 disease or vaccination certificate, but three concerts are also intended for those who will be able to present a negative covid test.
–
