16 November 2018, 7pm
Duration: 2 hours
Price: €6,00 - €20,00
Venue: Vilnius Congress Hall (Vilniaus Str. 6-1, Vilnius)
Violin Alena Baeva
Orchestra Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra
Conductor Olari Elts

Concert programme

Igor Stravinsky. Funeral Song, Op. 5
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Gustav Mahler. Symphony No. 5

* * *

Violinist Alena Baeva was noticed by classical music luminaries when she studied at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire. At the invitation of Mstislav Rostropovich, she studied in France in 2003 and attended Seiji Ozawa's Academy in Switzerland in 2007. After her debut at the Lincoln Center New York in 2017, the "New York Classical Review" wrote: "Baeva was a magnetic presence, and the sound of her instrument, the fullness of tone, and her marvelously precise intonation were admirable and beautiful in and of themselves. Her strength and fire made the concerto [she was performing] sound like a masterpiece." The artist's repertoire currently includes over 40 violin concerti and not only the renowned classical works, but also lesser known compositions.

The audiences of Vilnius Congress Concert Hall will hear Alena Baeva play one of the most famous and complex works for violin – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's (1840–1893) Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35. The piece was written in Clarens, a Swiss resort on the shores of Lake Geneva, where Tchaikovsky had gone to recover from emotional distress. He was so overwhelmed by the work that the sketches were completed in only eleven days, while the scoring took only two weeks. The second part of the concert will feature Symphony No. 5 by Gustav Mahler's (1860–1911), noted for a rich palette of musical resources and a huge emotional range.

Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra will be led by the Estonian conductor Olari Elts. "His gift for revealing inner structures imbued the sound of the orchestra with a fresh, living dimensionality," wrote "Artsfile Ottawa". Maestro Elts regularly performs with the world's renowned orchestras including the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and others.