Featuring:
Margarita Balanas (cello)

Liepāja Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Douglas Bostock

Programme:
Edward Elgar (1857-1934) Cello Concerto
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) A London Symphony
Gustav Holst (1874-1934) Phantastes Suite

Internationally acclaimed Latvian cellist Margarita Balanas, together with the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra, invites you to an evening that weaves together the distinctive voices of three early-20th-century British composers. On the podium will be British maestro Douglas Bostock.

At the heart of the evening is Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, a central work of the composer’s late period. It is also one of the most important pieces in the cello repertoire.

Performing this work with the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra will be Margarita Balanas, whom critics describe as one of the most compelling cellists of her generation.

Ralph Vaughan Williams’ A London Symphony is one of the most significant British symphonic works of the early 20th century, marking the composer’s transition from a national-romantic idiom toward broader symphonic thinking.

Gustav Holst’s Phantastes Suite will be heard in Liepāja for the first time since its premiere in 1912. As conductor Douglas Bostock notes, after this single performance Holst withdrew the piece and removed it from his official catalogue of works, considering it an artistically incomplete realization of his idea. As a result, the Phantastes Suite has remained outside the concert repertoire, unlike other works from the same period that later became established in the canon.