New Seasons - Glass / Pärt / Kancheli / Umebayashi Kremerata Baltica & Gidon Kremer

• Philip Glass (*1937): Violin Concerto No. 2 The American Four Seasons:
• 1 Prologue 01:38
• 2 Movement I 06:28
• 3 Song No. 1 04:06
• 4 Movement II 11:13
• 5 Song No. 2 02:29
• 6 Movement III 06:19
• 7 Song No. 3 02:50
• 8 Movement IV 07:05
• Arvo Pärt (*1935): Estnisches Wiegenlied · Berceuse estonienne) for choir and strings:
• 9 Estonian Lullaby 02:11
• Giya Kancheli (*1935): for violin, cello, strings, keyboard:
• 10 Ex Contrario 29:59
• Shigeru Umbayashi (*1952): from the movie In the Mood for Love:
• 11 Yumeji's Theme 03:25
• Total Runtime 01:17:43

Info for New Seasons - Glass / Pärt / Kancheli / Umebayashi

Gidon Kremer returns to the Yellow label after more than a decade with the brand new reference recording of Philip Glass’ Second Violin Concerto – “The American Seasons”, hs first solo concerto album in many years.The first Glass Violin Concerto, performed by Kremer and released by DG in 1993, has achieved cult status and shipped close to 90k units (in Germany alone over 25k copies) – and has become a staple of DG’s contemporary music catalogue.

Now, this extraordinary follow-up Concerto is at the heart of the repertoire of the Kremerata Baltica. Performed for the first time in San José, Costa Rica with Gidon Kremer as soloist in August 2013, it will be toured later in the year - info to follow shortly.

The album is completed by works of Arvo Pärt and Giya Kancheli – two composers both closely associated with Gidon Kremer, and who are both set to celebrate milestone 80th birthdays this year. Gidon has also added the short piece by the well-known Japanese film composer Shigeru Umebayashi as a tribute to his Japanese friends.

Four highly regarded visual artists and film maker have created four different films for each of the American Seasons that are projected to screens during concert performances.

Gidon Kremer, violin (Violin Concerto No. 2)
Kremerata Baltica

Gidon Kremer
Of all the world’s leading violinists, Gidon Kremer has perhaps had the most unconventional career. Born in Riga, Latvia, he began studying at the age of four with his father and grandfather, who were both distinguished string players. At the age of seven, he entered Riga Music School. At sixteen he was awarded the first Prize of the Latvian Republic and two years later he began his studies with David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory. He went on to win prestigious awards including the 1967 Queen Elizabeth Competition and the first prize in both Paganini and Tchaikovsky International Competitions.

This success launched Gidon Kremer’s distinguished career, in the course of which he has established a worldwide reputation as one of the most original and compelling artists of his generation. He has appeared on virtually every major concert stage with the most celebrated orchestras of Europe and America. Also he has collaborated with today’s foremost conductors.

Gidon Kremer’s repertoire is unusually extensive, encompassing all of the standard classical and romantic violin works, as well as music by twentieth- and twenty-first century masters such as Henze, Berg and Stockhausen. He also championed the works of living Russian and Eastern European composers and has performed many important new compositions; several of them dedicated to him. He has become associated with such diverse composers as Alfred Schnittke, Arvo Pärt, Giya Kancheli, Sofia Gubaidulina, Valentin Silvestrov, Luigi Nono, Aribert Reimann, Peteris Vasks, John Adams, Victor Kissine, Michael Nyman, Philipp Glass, Leonid Desyatnikov and Astor Piazzolla, bringing their music to audiences in a way that respects tradition yet remains contemporary. It would be fair to say that no other soloist of his international stature has done as much for contemporary composers in the past 30 years.

An exceptionally prolific recording artist, Gidon Kremer has made more than 120 albums, many of which brought him prestigious international awards and prizes in recognition of his exceptional interpretative powers. These include the „Grand prix du Disque“, „Deutscher Schallplattenpreis“, the „Ernst-von-Siemens Musikpreis“, the „Bundesverdienstkreuz“, the „Premio dell‘ Accademia Musicale Chigiana“, the „Triumph Prize 2000” (Moscow), in 2001 the „Unesco Prize”, in 2007 the Saeculum-Glashütte Original-Musikfestspielpreis Dresden and in 2008 the Rolf-Schock Prize, Stockholm, in 2010 "life achievement" prize of the Istanbul Music festival, and in 2011 he was awarded "Una Vita Nella Musica - Artur Rubinstein" Prize (Venice) which is considered by many to be the "Nobel Prize" of music, among many others.

In February 2002 he and the Kremerata Baltica were awarded with the Grammy for the Nonesuch recording “After Mozart” in the category “Best small Ensemble Performance”. The same recording received in the fall of 2002 an ECHO prize in Germany.

The EMI Classics CD „The Berlin Recital“ with Martha Argerich and works by Schumann and Bartók has been recently released as well as an album with all violin concertos of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a live recording with the label Nonesuch, recorded with Kremerata Baltica at Salzburg Festival 2006. His latest CD „De Profundis“ was published in September 2010 with Nonesuch. Gidon Kremer actively collaborates as well with the ECM label, which released his last recording of all J. S. Bach Sonatas and Partitas. The most recent releases are a Piano trio album with Khatia Buniatishvili and Giedre Dirvanauskaite and a CD set of Lockenhaus Live-recordings celebrating the 30 years of this unique festival, G. Kremer concluded in 2011.

In 1981 Mr. Kremer founded Lockenhaus, an intimate chamber music festival that continued to take place every summer in Austria for 30 years until 2011. In 1997, he founded the Kremerata Baltica chamber orchestra to foster outstanding young musicians from the three Baltic States. Since then, Mr. Kremer has been touring extensively with the orchestra appearing at world’s most prestigious festivals and concert halls. He has also recorded almost 20 CD’s with the orchestra for Teldec, Nonesuch, DGG and ECM. (From 2002 - 2006 Gidon Kremer was the artistic leader of the new festival „les muséiques” in Basel (Switzerland)).

Gidon Kremer plays a Nicola Amati, dated from 1641. He is also the author of three books, published in German and translated into many languages, which reflect his artistic pursuits.

Booklet for New Seasons - Glass / Pärt / Kancheli / Umebayashi