RELATED EVENTS
Culture event
12 February 21:00
"Mother Teresa's Prayer" concert in Kiev
"The core idea of the concert is based on the composition Lord, open our eyes by Pēteris Vasks. The content of the programme will serve as proof that there are neither confessional nor national borders that could diminish the power of a genuine prayer. The text of Mother Teresa's prayers forms a uniform basis for the music, its soul and spirit; this is a story about the power of faith and the source of inspiration," relates the artistic director of the Latvian Radio Choir, Sigvards Kļava, who came up with the idea of the concert.
"The concert is a musical commemoration in which Mother Teresa prays for the entire world in the name of the whole human race," explains the conductor.
"Music is the greatest of all muses, as it provides the easiest way to access the divine. Music is an abstraction, yet sound is able to express the spirit. It cannot be explained verbally. Everyone nowadays talks solely about bodily needs and I feel like screaming: "Where is your spirit, where is your soul?" A chaotic jungle has taken over the human soul. For that reason I strive to maintain a ray of light through my music," Pēteris Vasks recounts with regard to his creative work in general and to the composition Lord, open our eyes.
Composer Pēteris Vasks. Photo: Dz.Geka
His other composition The fruit of silence, the lyrics of which were written by Mother Teresa, was created following a suggestion made by the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. The composer describes the opus as a very silent meditation: "There are five road signs there – prayer, faith, love, the service of God and peace. With this composition I want to remind listeners that this road does exist."
The composition Litany to Mother Teresa by Andrejs Selickis, with lyrics written both by Mother Teresa and the author, will also be performed at the concert. The transcendental sacral texts are intertwined with elements of Latvian folk music, with the choral and orchestral sound enriched by that of bagpipes. In addition, the audience will hear the composition A Drop in the Ocean by Ēriks Ešenvalds, which is dedicated to Mother Teresa, Silence, love and light by Rihards Dubra, and Silouan´s song by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, in which the energy can be felt not only through the music but also as the author’s very personal declaration of faith.
On 31 March, the Latvian Radio Choir and the Sinfonietta Riga chamber orchestra will perform this programme at the Belarussian State Philharmonic in Minsk.
The concert forms part of the cultural programme of the Latvian EU Council Presidency which has contemporaneity, uniqueness and excellence as its core values. The programme consists of about 200 events around the world, and is the most ambitious presentation of Latvia´s culture abroad since the restoration of independence.
