LITHUANIAN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Artistic director, soloist and conductor SERGEJ KRYLOV (violin)
Soloist SANDRA LIED HAGA (cello, Norway)
With the participation of VAIVA EIDUKAITYTĖ-STORASTIENĖ (piano)
TEISUTIS MAKAČINAS – Sinfonia giocosa for piano and strings
JOSEPH HAYDN – Concerto for cello and orchestra No. 1 in C major, Hob. VIIb:1
ANTONIO VIVALDI–MAX RICHTER – Re-composition of The Four Seasons for violin and string orchestra
In its traditional Christmas concert, the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra (LCO) shares the stage with two soloists: its artistic director, violinist and conductor Sergej Krylov, and Norwegian cellist Sandra Lied Haga. She will solo in Joseph Haydn’s First concerto for cello and orchestra in C major, composed around 1765 for Joseph Franz Weigl, Haydn’s friend and cellist of Prince Esterházy’s orchestra. For the next 200 years, nothing was known about this work until the musicologist Oldřich Pulkert discovered a copy of the score in the National Museum in Prague in 1961. It was performed at the Prague Spring Festival in 1962.
Cellist Haga made her debut with a symphony orchestra at the age of 10 and has won four international competitions. She has appeared at London’s Wigmore Hall and Royal Albert Hall, the TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht, Salzburg Festival and Verbier Festival, and has collaborated with musicians such as Maxim Vengerov, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Janine Jansen, Yo-Yo Ma and others. Since 2023, Haga has served as an artistic director of the Kristiansand Chamber Music Festival.
In the second half of the concert, the Orchestra and Krylov will perform Vivaldi’s famous The Four Seasons recomposed by British composer Max Richter. The 2012 release Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The New Four Seasons caused a real stir in the traditional world of interpretations of this baroque opus. This is a completely new, fresh and daring approach to what is probably one of the most popular works for violin. “We all know and carry The Four Seasons within us,” says Richter. The work uses a variety of modern compositional principles that reflect the music of the past. “I’ve taken 25% of the notes from Vivaldi, but they all have Vivaldi’s DNA in them,” the composer joked.
The festive concert will also feature Lithuanian music – Teisutis Makačinas’ scintillating and elegant Sinfonia giocosa (Joyful Symphony) for piano and strings, composed in 1990. The composer, who has worked with the LCO since its inception, has written a number of striking opuses for the Orchestra, and was awarded the Orchestra Prize for Sinfonia giocosa.
