Elīna ENDZELE
Emmanuel SÉJOURNÉ – vibraphone
Conductor Guntis KUZMA
Programme:
Guillaume Connesson “Fireworks”
Emmanuel Séjourné Double Concerto for marimba, vibraphone and orchestra
Igor STRAVINSKY – “The Firebird” (1945 version)
The name of Emmanuel Séjourné will be well known to lovers of percussion – an outstanding master of the vibraphone and marimba who has widened the possibilities of both instruments, a teacher at the Strasbourg Conservatory, an inspiration to young talents and a composer of music that is easy on the ear.
In Latvia his pieces have been championed above all by young percussionists – Séjourné’s former student Guntars Freibergs, a nominee for the Grand Music Award 2010, and Séjourné’s newest student Jānis Bombizo-Fedotovs, winner of the Grand Music Award 2014 in the category “Young Musician of the Year”. Guntars once said of this French virtuoso: “A highly professional and demanding teacher. His view is that a musician should have broad scope and be able to play practically anything.”
At the concert on 30 October we will hear Emmanuel Séjourné’s Double Concerto played by the master himself in duo with our enchanting percussionist Elīna Endzele. Alongside it – the brilliant “Fireworks” by the French composer Guillaume Connesson and the 1945 version of Igor Stravinsky’s glittering suite “The Firebird”. On the podium – Guntis Kuzma.
Igor Stravinsky’s suite “The Firebird” is the composer’s own arrangement drawn from his first great collaboration with the legendary company Ballets Russes and its director Sergei Diaghilev. With this work the then still young Stravinsky became famous throughout Europe (the scandal of “The Rite of Spring” was still a few years away), and in this music his hand is still strongly under the influence of Rimsky-Korsakov, Scriabin, Debussy and Ravel.
The story is about Prince Ivan, who captures the Firebird in a magic garden of golden apples, then takes pity on the miraculous creature and sets it free. In gratitude the Firebird gives Ivan one of its feathers. Suddenly the garden gates open and a troop of beautiful maidens appears, come to dance in the moonlight and play with the golden apples. All this must be done in secret from Kashchei the Immortal, who holds the maidens captive and turns every would-be rescuer to stone. The prince loses his heart above all to the Beautiful Tsarevna. When the maidens return to their dwelling in the evening, Ivan slips in with them, although he has been warned that it will end badly. Just as Kashchei begins to turn him to stone, the young man remembers the fiery feather in his pocket. The Firebird appears at the first call, helps Ivan lull all the monsters to sleep and even reveals where Kashchei’s death is hidden – an egg in a casket inside a hollow tree. Ivan crushes the shell holding Kashchei’s death, and the old man crumbles to dust. The stone figures come back to life, every warrior finds a bride, and the ballet ends with a hymn of joy.
Several suites are known, and this time Guntis Kuzma has chosen the one made in 1945 – less popular, but containing more of the ballet itself than the others. The music sets the imagination going – the maidens’ dance flows gently, the Firebird glitters, the creatures of darkness send shivers down the spine, and the ending, as already said, is a happy one.
Emmanuel Séjourné was born in Limoges and studied piano and violin, music history and analysis at the Strasbourg National Conservatory. After encountering the legendary ensemble Percussions de Strasbourg and its founder and director Jean Batigne, Séjourné turned to the world of percussion, above all in contemporary music and improvisation. He plays mainly the vibraphone and marimba, and since the early 1980s he has been active both as a composer and as a concert performer.
Together with the saxophonist Philippe Geiss he founded the ensemble NOCO MUSIC. The duo’s album Saxophone et Percussions won the audiovisual Grand Prixof the French Académie du Disque. Séjourné has premiered more than a hundred new works (concertos, chamber pieces, solo music) by Donati, Dillon, Manoury, Aperghis, Mâche, Pesson, Toeplitz, Kerger and others.
Emmanuel Séjourné has performed with countless orchestras. In 1996 he gave the first performance of James Wood’s Séance for soprano, New London Chamber Choir and vibra-midi, in the use of which he found innovative approaches. As a soloist or with the ensemble Accroche-Note Emmanuel Séjourné has taken part in festivals in Zurich and Huddersfield, at Archipel Genève, Ars Musica, Musica Strasbourg, Ultima, the Zagreb Biennale and the Venice Biennale, as well as in broadcasts and live concerts on Radio France, Norwegian Radio, BBC, WDR and RTA . Séjourné’s recordings can be found on the labels Montaigne, Accord, Una Corda, Musifrance Erato and Biber Records.
Elīna Endzele is a member of the percussion section of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra (since 2005) and principal percussionist of the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra (since 2012). Elīna studied at the Emīls Dārziņš Music School with Dzintra Knābe and at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music with Edgars Saksons, in whose class she took her master’s degree. She has regularly taken private lessons with Reinhard Toriser, solo timpanist of the Komische Oper Berlin. She won second prize at the International Timpani Competition in Paris (2008) and was nominated for the Grand Music Award 2010 for her ensemble work. Since 2011 she has appeared from time to time with the chamber orchestra Kremerata Baltica . She is a member of the trio Art-i-Shock and of the brass and percussion ensemble Brasscussion (Berlin). She collaborates with the organist Aigars Reinis. In 2009 Elīna received the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music and Swedbank annual award for a young musician.
Guillaume Connesson is a French composer of the middle generation – the author of vital music that speaks to everyone. Among his influences Connesson names masters from Couperin and Wagner to Stravinsky, Messiaen, Reich and James Brown. So far Latvia has heard examples of his chamber music, but from his symphonic output “Fireworks” will probably be the first swallow.
Pre-concert talk at 18.00 in the White Hall of the Great Guild! This time Orests Silabriedis’s guest is Edgars Saksons, principal percussionist and orchestra manager of the LNSO.
French music is best enjoyed with French wine! The French Institute and the wine bar Garage invite audiences to a wine tasting an hour before the concert, at 18.00!