Press information, 2 December 2024, Riga. On Saturday, 7 December, at 18:00 at the Small Hall of Dzintari Concert Hall, the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra (LNSO), conducted by Janis Stafeckis, will perform early Romantic master Felix Mendelssohn’s overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and his Third, “Scottish,” Symphony. On stage, the internationally acclaimed Latvian cellist Kristaps Bergs will perform the orchestra’s composer-in-residence Arturs Maskats’ Second Cello Concerto. In 2022, Bergs also gave the world premiere of this work at the “Cello Cesis” festival.
Through the sounds of music, the concert will give audiences the chance to experience the magical atmosphere of William Shakespeare’s play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” set to music by the then only 17-year-old German composer Felix Mendelssohn. The LNSO will also perform Mendelssohn’s Third, or “Scottish,” Symphony, whose origins lie in impressions from the composer’s 1829 journey to Scotland, though the work was not completed until more than ten years later, in the early 1840s.
The concert will also feature LNSO’s composer-in-residence for this season, Arturs Maskats’ Second Cello Concerto (second version). His first cello concerto was written back in 1992, while the second received its world premiere thirty years later, in 2022, at the “Cello Cesis” festival, performed by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra under conductor Modestas Pitrenas. The soloist role was taken by young Latvian cellist Kristaps Bergs, and now, on 7 December, he will perform it once again – this time together with the LNSO. Kristaps Bergs was the initiator behind commissioning this work and worked closely with the composer during its creation. Maskats found the thematic and emotional world of the piece in William Shakespeare’s sonnets. Each stage of the work’s development is marked by a line of poetry reflecting on love, the passage of human life, and the unchanging power of time.
Cellist Kristaps Bergs was born into a family of musicians and showed his passion for music from an early age. Establishing himself on the academic music scene as a virtuosic and musically mature professional, Kristaps has performed in the world’s most prestigious concert halls, including Carnegie Hall in New York, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the Vienna Musikverein and Konzerthaus, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Royal Albert Hall and Royal Festival Hall in London, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo. The musician has given concerts in Austria, Germany, the USA, Japan, France, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Croatia, Israel, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and elsewhere. He has collaborated with the iPalpiti orchestra, the chamber orchestras Sinfonia Concertante and Sinfonietta Riga, and has worked with conductors Andris Nelsons, Eduard Schmieder, Andris Vecumnieks, Normunds Sne and Heinrich Schiff.
Janis Stafeckis has been an LNSO conductor since the 2022/2023 season, and is also founder and artistic director of the Rezekne Chamber Orchestra. He has collaborated with renowned soloists and orchestras, given world premieres, and received several awards, including the Great Music Award. Janis’ repertoire spans a wide musical range from classicism to contemporary music. With extensive experience as a conductor and musician, he has furthered his knowledge in Latvia and abroad, including at the Komische Oper Berlin.
The concert is financially supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation. Tickets for the concert are available online.