BACH RIGA FINLANDIA

An annual tradition of the Orchestra RIGA is the August concerts AT the Riga Cathedral – the  “Summer classics”. In August 2023, two concert programs will be played – on August 15 “Bach, Respighi, Ravel” and on August 29 “Bach, Riga, Finlandia”.

Participants of BACH RIGA FINLANDIA:

Orchestra RIGA

Organist Ilona Birģele

Conductor Valdis Butāns

The idea of the concert is the rare instrumental interplay – where the wind instrument sounds are responding to the sound of Riga Cathedral organ – considered to be one of the world’s most valuable historic organs.

Besides Jean Sibelius Finlandia Orchestra RIGA will perform his music Valse triste Op. 44. Both music scores are arranged by José Schyns for symphonic band orchestra. The organist Ilona Birģele has included in the programme organ music works by Sibelius and Johan Sebastian Bach as well as contemporary music by Timo Kiiskinen from Finland. One of the central opuses of the performance is Motus Contrarius by Jukka-Pekka Lehto, which was dedicated for the Orchestra RIGA in 2014, when the composer participated and gained the First prize in the international composers contest of the festival WINDSTREAM organized by the Orchestra RIGA.

Finnish composer Jukka-Pekka Lehto (1958) earned a degree in military musicianship from the Finnish Navy Band in Turku. He studied flute at the Turku Conservatory and pursued further education at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. In 1987, Lehto became solo flutist of the Pori Sinfonietta Orchestra. Since then, he has been performing and teaching masterclasses in Finland, throughout Europe and in the United States. Also, since this time, Lehto has devoted himself more and more to composition. Initially, he composed mostly “easy listening” music, but gradually began adopting a more refined, modernistic musical language. As of 1999, he is a member of the Finnish Composers Society.