The final concert of the festival can be described as a concert of interaction between several related cultures. Cultures united by the sound of the cello. After kaleidoscopically changing its faces at the festival, opening up in various colors, tonight the cello summarizes the co-cultural creative state, inviting you to experience rich musical experiences that unite nations, their creators and performers. The concert is named after the work "Azul" (Spanish for "blue") by one of the most famous composers, Osvalds Golijov. An Argentinian composer of Eastern European Jewish origin, educated in Israel, currently living in the USA, O. Golijov combines cultural influences from the times when Christians, Jews and Arabs lived in peace in his work, his music "flowing from three cultural streams into one". Azul, one of the most wonderful cello concertos of this century, was born out of the composer's experience in the Middle East in 2000. in the summer The region was hit by a wave of violence, and after returning to New York, O. Golijov visited the Hayden Planetarium. He later said he saw images of Earth from above that "just shocked me: how beautiful this incredible planet is that we live on, looking at it without feeling all the suffering on the surface of our planet."
The world premiere of the case about creative freedom in a concert is the young and already world-renowned Estonian composer Alisson Kruusmaa's concerto for cello and symphony orchestra "Ali" (Wings, 2023), dedicated to the great Finnish cellist Martti Rousi, who and will perform the latest opus. "For me, this piece is a reflection of freedom and movement, the ability to rise and reach heights that would otherwise be unreachable," says the author.
Concerto for two violins and orchestra (version for 2 cellos and orchestra) from the early creative period of the composer Vidmantas Bartulis, who traveled forever, has a lot of similarities in the ideological sense with the music of Broniaus Kutavičius, which had a great influence on V. Bartulis himself. Therefore, this piece will infuse the Lithuanian identity into the co-cultural image of the program.
For the first time in Lithuania, the works are performed by one of the most solid ensembles - the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Robert Šerveniks, and an impressive line-up of authoritative cellists: Martti Rousi (Finland), Enrico Dindo (Italy), Marcelis Johannes Kits (Estonia), Krzysztof Karpeta (Poland). These are the jury members of this year's competition in Klaipėda, presenting their world-renowned excellence to the audience of this year's cello festival.