World Premiere of Krists Auznieks’ Anima highlights the 15th Anniversary of the Pēteris Vasks Foundation

On August 15th at 7:00 PM, the traditional summer concert “Pēteris Vasks Invites. Summer. Mežotne” returns to celebrate a landmark 15th anniversary. The evening’s absolute centerpiece is the highly anticipated world premiere of Anima for clarinet and cello, a masterfully crafted new work by the acclaimed composer Krists Auznieks, which was commissioned especially for this occasion by the Pēteris Vasks Fund.

To bring this milestone event to life, the organizers bring together an exceptional lineup of musicians, featuring violinist Magdalēna Gēka, clarinetist Egīls Šēfers, cellist Kristaps Bergs, and pianist Iveta Cālīte.

Alongside the groundbreaking premiere of Auznieks’ Anima, the ensemble will guide the audience through a profound program of modern chamber music. The evening includes Arvo Pärt’s haunting Fratres for violin and piano, Pēteris Vasks’s deeply moving Episodi e Canto Perpetuo for piano trio, and Olivier Messiaen’s monumental Quartet for the End of Time for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano.

In the Composer’s Words: Krists Auznieks on Anima

“Anima — soul, breath, the animating thing. The word is cousin to the Greek anemos, wind: the breath that moves through us is the same breath that moves through everything, and music has known this for as long as it has had instruments to know it with.

Clarinet and cello are two of music’s most patient singers — one made of breath, one of vibrating string — and a duo for them is, more than most chamber forms, a piece about breathing together. I wrote Anima for Egīls Šēfers and Kristaps Bergs, with thanks to the Pēteris Vasks Foundation for the invitation.

Vasks’s own music has long been a quiet teacher to me — its insistence that the soul, in music, is a presence to be addressed directly. Anima tries to address it, in two voices that listen as much as they speak.”