Today, on September 6, in Istanbul, Peteris Vasks will be awarded the Istanbul Music Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. This award has previously been received by Daniel Barenboim, Philip Glass, Gidon Kremer, Mischa Maisky, Zubin Mehta, Arvo Pärt, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Murray Perahia.

The award ceremony will take place before the concert, in which the Modigliani Quartet will play Peteris Vasks Sixth String Quartet (for the first time in Turkey) and Franz Schubert’s 15th String Quartet.

The Modigliani Quartet’s first violin, Amaury Coeytaux, said in a telephone conversation that he had known Peteris Vasks music before and had addressed him greatly; Vasks music enters the quartet repertoire for the first time, it is not easy to play, because of the high intensity of music, but the excitement for musicians is huge.

The composer himself will not be present at the moment of awarding, as he participates in the rehearsals of his Second Violin Concerto “Evening Light” in Riga. The Latvian premiere of “Evening Light” will take place on Thursday, September 9, in the concert hall “Cēsis” – music will be given to the addressee of this opus and world premiere Hugo Ticciati, Sinfonietta Rīga and conductor Normunds Šnē. Pēteris Vasks will be represented in Istanbul tonight by the Ambassador of Latvia to Turkey Pēteris Vaivars.

The sixth quartet is commisioned by the Istanbul Festival, the Autumn Chamber Music Festival (Latvian Concerts with the support of the SCCF), the Essen Philharmonic and the London Wigmore Hall with the support of Andre Hoffmann, President of the Swiss Hoffman Foundation. The world premiere of the quartet took place in September 2020 in Portugal, at the beginning of October of the same year the quartet was performed in Liepaja and Dzintari.

The world premiere of the Second Violin Concerto “Evening Light” took place on June 16, 2021 in Stockholm (Sweden), Hugo Ticciati played with the orchestra O / Modernt. On September 1, the concert was performed in Copenhagen, played by DUEN Orchestra conducted by Morten Rilund.

The information was prepared by Orests Silabriedis.