From 16 to 22 July 2018 the Classical Music Festival ŠALC will take place in Liepāja, Ventspils and Cēsis. The most outstanding musicians of the best symphony orchestras of Europe and Latvia will take part. 

The festival program includes chamber music concerts, master classes for new musicians of the Baltic Sea region and a symphonic music program, which on 19 July will be performed in Ventspils, on 20 July – in Liepāja, and on 22 July – in Cēsis by an orchestra formed of the best instrumentalists in Latvia and conducted by the audience favourite outstanding maestro Karel Mark Chichon.

The special guest of Festival ŠALC will be the world famous Latvian singer Mariana Rebeka, who gives brilliant performances in the world’s largest operas.

It is expected that the festival will become one of the most outstanding musical events of the centenary of Latvia in the regions of Latvia.

In the opening concert of Festival ŠALC we will meet one of the best trumpet players in the world, Håkan Hardenberger. According to critics, his passages flash like mercury, his silvery tone is pure and delicate, his trumpet sounds like a human voice and he is the most virtuous of all. The Guardian has summed it up conclusively – “the colossus of the trumpet play”.

In the Liepāja concert we will hear Hardenberger’s trumpet together with a wide range of percussion, virtuously managed by the Scottish percussionist Colin Currie. He is sometimes called the most daring percussionist of modern days, and The Guardian again summarizes briefly and precisely – “an athlete and a star”.

The program “Magical Realism” performed by the two energetic virtuosos includes compositions by the modernist Karlheinz Stockhausen, the Japanese romanticist Toru Takemitsu, the Norwegian avant-gardist Rolf Wallin, and pieces by Australia's most outstanding contemporary composer Brett Dean, alongside opuses by the Manchester composer Joe Duddell and Austrian jazzman Christian Muthspiel.

The combination of trumpet with traditional and exotic percussion will provide an exciting adventure of unimaginable sound combinations.

Håkan Hardenberger has visited Latvia before, but Colin Currie will be visiting us for the first time.

A few days after visiting Kurzeme, Hardenberger will go to the prestigious Salzburg Festival, where conducted by André Nelson he will play a solo in the contemporary splendid and brilliant jazzy Trumpet Concert of Bernd Alois Zimmermann. Collin Curry will visit Latvia between his two concerts, possibly in the most popular summer festival of classical music, BBC Proms in London.

Venue: Great Hall

Organised by: Good music