On Friday, October 31, Latvia will once again welcome ENSEMBLE KWARTLUDIUM, a Polish contemporary music ensemble founded in 2002, which specializes not only in initiating new works, but also in performing them repeatedly. At 7 p.m. in the Chamber Hall of the VEF Culture Palace, these musicians will share the stage with the vocal group PUTNI in a jointly created program, DABAS BALSIS (Voices of Nature), which will highlight the central theme of this year's festival. The versatile Polish talent Żaneta Rydzewska explores the life of insects in her opus Entomophony, while Swedish sound poet Jenny Hettne draws inspiration from birdsong in her Habitat. Her compatriot Marie Samuelsson invites us to reflect on plastic-polluted waters, while Jēkabs Nīmanis has created a new work for this unusual Polish-Latvian vocal-instrumental ensemble. Renāte Stivriņa's composition Planētas sieviešu balsīm un čellam (Planets for Women's Voices and Cello) will also be premiered.
The final day of the festival, November 1, will be packed with events. At 3:00 p.m. (departure from the LNB stop), Andra Dzenīša will lead a musical adventure with conversations and mini-concerts called ARĒNA CEĻO. The first stop on the concert tour will be the Riga Catholic Gymnasium, where at 3:30 p.m. the program GADALAIKI will feature the Polish accordionist MACEJS FRONCKEVIČS (Maciej Frąckiewicz), renowned for his versatility, charisma and musical hooliganism. His repertoire features music by contemporary composers of various styles and interplay with electronics. He will introduce the Riga audience to the impressive opus Seasons for accordion and live electronics by his compatriot Przemysław Scheller.
The next stop will be the Aleponija club, where at 5 p.m. soprano VIKTORIJA MAJORE and writer RVĪNS VARDE will meet on stage in the program BALSSTIESĪBAS. This electronically enriched program, interwoven with sound art, literature, and theater, will focus on Latvian music, with the singer returning to works dedicated to her by new-generation composers Henrijs Poikāns and Žanete Spirkas, premiering Agita Reķe's score and also revisiting the works of Arturs Maskats and Italian contemporary classics.
The culmination of these intense days will be the festival's closing concert, ŪDENS TRIO, at the Riga Reformed Church at 7 p.m., featuring the BALTIC PERCUSSION TRIO, three brilliant percussionists from the Baltic countries who have been performing as a trio for quite some time: Guntars Freibergs, Andris Rekašis (Andrius Rekašius) and Heigo Rosins (Heigo Rosin). The pillars of their program are works dedicated to the themes of environment and ecology, including Rain Tree by Japanese classic Toru Takemitsu, Bridging the World by Swedish composer and percussionist Tobias Broström, and Elementi by Madara Pētersone.
His repertoire features music by contemporary composers of various styles and interplay with electronics. He will introduce the Riga audience to the impressive opus Seasons for accordion and live electronics by his compatriot Przemysław Scheller.
The program also includes new works by composers representing all three Baltic countries – Ansels Kaugers, Linas Rupšlaukas and Lauri Jõeleht – created especially for this trio.
ARĒNA is a contemporary music festival that has been bringing together young music composers, performers and listeners from many countries around the world in Latvian concert halls every autumn since 2002. The festival's motto, SAKLAUSI NĀKOTNI! (Listen to the Future!), encapsulates the main idea and goal of the festival – to showcase the diversity of contemporary music in all its glory, promoting the creation, performance and documentation of new music. Over the course of more than 20 years, the festival's astonishing colourfulness has resonated in an intimate chamber atmosphere, in its symphonically broad scope, suggested in electroacoustic sound art and addressed in interdisciplinary projects, captivated in jazz moods, surprised in stage works and moved in the splendor of vocal music. Alongside the future, the legacy of the past has always been extremely important, which is why the festival has always focused on both widely acclaimed contemporary musical masterpieces and specially commissioned new works by local composers.
