Press information, February 2025, Riga. The outstanding, internationally acclaimed violinist and LNSO’s artist-in-residence for this season, Vineta Sareika, will perform in Latvia in late February and March, offering audiences two captivating concert programmes. On 28 February at 19:00 in Jurmala, at Dzintari Concert Hall, and on 1 March in Ventspils, at the “Latvija” Concert Hall, Vineta Sareika will perform together with the LNSO string section in a soulful, thought-provoking concert programme, “Vineta Sareika and LNSO Strings,” featuring the most philosophical works of Samuel Barber, Franz Schubert and Karl Amadeus Hartmann. Then on 13 March in Riga, at the Music House “Daile,” Vineta Sareika will share the stage with internationally renowned Latvian pianist Lauma Skride and outstanding Belgian clarinettist Annelien van Wauve, offering a chamber music programme rich in vivid character pieces, in the concert “Vineta Sareika. Trio.”
Violinist Vineta Sareika is one of the brightest jewels of Latvian academic music. The musician has built a broad and varied career: she performs as a soloist, is first violin of the prestigious Artemis Quartet, a professor and competition jury member, and has recently concluded her tenure as concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic (the orchestra’s first-ever female concertmaster), and is also a multiple ECHO Klassik award winner. In this, the LNSO’s 99th season, Vineta Sareika serves as the orchestra’s artist-in-residence. The musician’s international success began in 2009, when she became a laureate of the Queen Elisabeth International Violin Competition in Belgium. Vineta Sareika plays a violin built in 1683 by the famous violin maker Antonio Stradivari.
The upcoming concerts on 28 February at 19:00 in Dzintari and on 1 March at 17:00 in Ventspils* with the LNSO string section will take listeners through some of the most fragile and profound human experiences, always accompanied by faith and hope. The programme includes Samuel Barber’s famous and cathartic Adagio for Strings, which grew out of the second movement of the composer’s only string quartet. It will also feature Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s “Concerto funebre,” written in response to the annexation of Czechoslovakia during the Second World War, as well as an arrangement for string orchestra of Franz Schubert’s string quartet “Death and the Maiden.” The concerts are supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation.
The LNSO chamber music series concert “Vineta Sareika. Trio” will take place on 13 March at 19:00 at the Music House “Daile.” There, alongside violinist Vineta Sareika, the stage will also welcome Latvian pianist Lauma Skride and Belgian clarinettist Annelien van Wauve, bringing together in this trio outstanding musicians who are internationally acclaimed both as soloists and chamber musicians. The upcoming programme promises to be full of vivid character pieces – it includes Maurice Ravel’s fiery “Tzigane,” Aram Khachaturian’s Clarinet Trio steeped in Armenian intonations, a refreshing suite by Darius Milhaud, works permeated by Bela Bartok’s uniquely expressive musical language, as well as vivid, theatrical works by Igor Stravinsky and Erik Satie.
*A VIP add-on, the “Friends of Music Club,” can be added to the concert ticket in Ventspils, offering access to the cloakroom in the concert hall’s second-floor “Greenroom,” refreshments, and the chance to meet and mingle with the artists. Tickets for the concerts are available at “Bilesu Paradize” sales points and online. To follow the latest LNSO news, please visit the LNSO website and the orchestra’s Facebook page.