26 SGMF Opening Concert | SILENCE LEITMOTIF. Krista Audere

State Choir Latvija

Conductor Krista Audere

Programme:

David Lang, Andris Dzenītis, Maija Einfelde, Nana Forte

With a programme named Silence Leitmotif, the State Choir LATVIJA will open the 26th International Sacred Music Festival on the 18th August at St. Peter’s Church, Riga, conducted by Krista Audere. “This programme unites contemporary composers whose music expresses an inexhaustible, existential  search for truth and the meaning of our existence.” Observations on this topic have also been expressed by poets Fricis Bārda and Māris Salējs, whose stanzas have been ornamented in music by composers Maija Einfelde and Andris Dzenītis. The evening’s programme will be woven through with the music of American minimalist composer David Lang, from his cycle The Writings, in which, by freely combining sacred texts from the Old and New Testaments, the composer searches for the answers to humanity’s hopes and weaknesses. Meanwhile, Slovenian composer Nana Forte’s opus Miserere Mei (Have Mercy On Me), which uses the text of Psalm 51, will be performed in Latvia for the first time; the piece has a sound which is similar to the pathos of Romantic music and promises to be the emotional peak of the evening.