Musicians from across the Baltic Sea region have come together in Liepāja, Latvia, for one of the most intense musical experiences of their lives – this year’s Academy LAB sessions. From 9 to 14 April they will live, breathe, eat and sleep music, as they rehearse under the baton of Kristjan Järvi for the ‘Baltic Sea Landscapes’ tour, which kicks off with on Friday, 15 April 2016, 6.00 pm, in Klaipeda, Lithuania.
Alongside the intensive orchestral schedule, players will participate in innovative workshops designed to inspire them in their future careers, as well as having some time to socialise with other passionate young musicians from across the region. They will also work with up-and-coming composers and conductors as part of our Composition and Conducting Workshops, which run in parallel to the LAB.
Coaches for this year’s LAB include Ole Edvard Antonsen (brass); Jan Bjøranger (violin); Paul Cortese (viola); Charles DeRamus (double bass); Andrey Godik (woodwinds); Justas Kulikauskas (cello); Sebastiaan Molenaar (percussion) and Daniel Schnyder (composition). Daniel Schnyder describes what makes LABs so special: ‘There are many composition workshops, violin workshops and youth orchestras around the world. But there doesn’t exist another that is the whole package, where students can access the entire musical process of creating music, improvising, playing new music and traditional music, and knowing how to play in an orchestra. We always try to present something new and exciting to the young people, to give them ideas. We fuse all these aspects of music making together here, which is unique.’
Together with Founding Conductor and Music Director Kristjan Järvi, the musicians will work on repertoire that celebrates the environment, a key priority for the Baltic Sea Philharmonic – its Helsinki concert will be presented by the John Nurminen Foundation to raise funds for its ‘Clean Baltic Sea’ projects. The programme offers a journey across seas and landscapes, through nature and wildlife, with works such as Jean Sibelius’s Karelia Suite, Arvo Pärt’s Swansong, Stravinsky’s Firebird, and Gediminas Gelgotas’s Mountains. Waters. (Freedom). The orchestra also performs works by Brahms and Prokofiev, whose 125th anniversary it will celebrate on 23 April with a concert in Moscow.