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Peteris Vasks' Sala Premieres at Marin Symphony in California

Jan. 01, 2007

The Latvian composer Peteris Vasks' Sala (Symphonic Elegy for Orchestra) sees its world premiere performances on January 28 and 30 in Marin with Alasdair Neale conducting the Marin Symphony.  Vasks' new orchestral work comes to Marin through the generous and innovative auspices of the Magnum Opus commissioning project and is part of a concert program that also includes Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3, featuring 24-year-old soloist Orion Weiss, and Kodaly's Dances of Galanta.

Conductor Alasdair Neale notes, “In one program, audiences will be able to hear an important emerging talent in performance and an important emerging talent in composition.  I’m very proud to have so much going on musically right here in Marin.”

One of the most prolific and influential composers from Latvia, Peteris Vasks has written numerous symphonic, choral and chamber works.  His five string quartets have been performed and recorded by distinguished ensembles worldwide, including the Kronos Quartet, among others. Many of the composer's works have programmatic titles which often refer to the natural world. But for Vasks, it is not simply a poetical praise of nature or description of a particular landscape that is at the core of his aesthetic ideal: instead, it is the mutual relationship between nature and man, the beauty of life and the threatening ecological and moral destruction of these values that take on primary importance, especially in his most recent work.

The Magnum Opus commissioning project was founded in 2002 by Kathryn Gould because she was dissatisfied with the new music she was hearing—or not hearing—in symphony halls across the country.  She also was frustrated with the all-too-frequent pattern of impressive, new works being shelved after single, premiere performances.  Comments Ms. Gould, “I am optimistic that we are entering a time of musical creativity that will once again speak to the hearts and minds of music-loving audiences.”  The orchestras participating in Ms. Gould’s innovative commissioning program are the Marin Symphony, the Oakland East Bay Symphony and the Santa Rosa Symphony. Magnum Opus is administered by the New York-based commissioning organization Meet the Composer.

For more information about Peteris Vasks: www.schott-music.com

For more information about the Marin Symphony: www.marinsymphony.org

For more information about Meet the Composer: www.meetthecomposer.org

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