Vestard Shimkus, Liepaja Symphony Orchestra & Atvars Lakstigala
Release Date: 18 March 2022
Label: Skani
Packaging Type: Digipak
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 4751025441045
Genres: Classical Contemporary Classical
Description
Celebrated Latvian pianist Vestard Shimkus releases world premiere recordings of his own works performed with Liepaja Symphony Orchestra in this new studio recording.
Vestard Shimkus (1984) is among the generation of Latvian performers who came of age and began his professional career after Latvia had regained its independence. These artists were able to study abroad, perform freely anywhere in the world and sign contracts with respectable recording labels – in other words, things that had been unavailable to his predecessors. The Iron Curtain had denied them deserved recognition in Western concert halls. Shimkus and his generation, for their part, were free to develop their careers from the very beginning.
Shimkus is not only a pianist but also a composer. He wrote his first pieces of music as a composition student under Peteris Vasks and his piano paraphrases, variations and fantasias (a typical example is Astor Piazzolla's Heartbeat) were followed by increasingly more confident and serious works. Shimkus calls himself a romantically thinking and feeling artist, and therefore the music he creates echoes the metamorphoses of turbulent imagination and vivid characters in the music of composer-pianists Ludwig van Beethoven, Frederic Chopin, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt and Sergei Rachmaninov. Virtuosity is an integral part of his music, and here Simkus fully realises his pianistic potential – the texture of the instrument sparkles with ever new variations, waves of rhythm and harmony crashing against each other.
Tracklisting
Latvian Radio Choir, Sigvards Klava
Various Artists
Ilze Reinis & Aigars Reinis
Sophia Kirsanova
Robert Fleitz
Liga Priede, Andrejs Grimms
Atomos Saxophone Quartet
Latvian Radio Choir
Kari Beate Tandberg
SWR Vokalensemble, IRCAM, Yuval Weinberg
Marco Fusi
Klangforum Wien, Johannes Kalitzke, Bas Wiegers, Alessandro Baticci, Rafal Zalech
Sofia Burgos, Sofia Jernberg, Zwerm
Andreas Skouras, Bela Bartok, Gyorgy Ligeti, Wolfgang von Schweinitz, Pascal Dusapin, Unsuk Chin, Y
Mikael Rudolfsson, Olivier Vivares, Gerard Grisey, Luciano Berio, Eloain Lovis Hubner, Bernhard Gan
John Palmer, Delphine Henriet, Barbara Maurer, Hofer Symphoniker, Alinde Quartett, Johannes Klumpp,
