Gidon Kremer - Pages of a Biography

Gidon Kremer and his Kremerata Baltica ensemble continue the longstanding relationship with ECM’s New Series on Pages of a Biography, bringing together music by Georgs Pelēcis, Andrius Žlabys and Arvo Pärt. Pärt’s Passacaglia, written for Kremer’s 70th birthday, and Darf ich … frame Žlabys’s Kaleidoscope of Lost Time, dedicated to Kremer and Kremerata Baltica, and Pelēcis’s title concerto, written for Kremer and drawing on memories of their youth together in Riga. The programme continues a musical relationship with the Baltic region that has been central to Kremer’s work with ECM since Tabula Rasa, the recording that inaugurated the New Series. Here, personal history and musical memory meet in works written for, and shaped by, one of the most persistent advocates of Baltic contemporary music. The album arrives on the cusp of two anniversaries: the Kremerata Baltica turns 30 in 2027, and Gidon Kremer’s 80th birthday celebrations in 2027 (*February 27th) are also fittingly inaugurated with Pages of a Biography.