About the concert

Latvian (electric) violinist Roberts Balanas breaks the boundaries between different musical genres with an eclectic vision. Combining his background in classical music with the sound worlds of pop, rock and funk, his solo arrangements for violin have now collected millions of views on the Internet. Tonight in the Recital Hall he pays tribute to the Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, who will turn 80 in 2026, as well as playing innovative arrangements of works by Elton John, Billie Eilish and others.

Roberts Balanas violin, electric violin

Works:

Vasks unhurried, gradually flourishing (from Sonata Estiva)

Stevens Mystery of Love

Reich Violin phase

Bush Running up that hill

Björk Anchor song

Pärt Spiegel im Spiegel

Eilish wish you were gay

John Bennie and the jets

Roberts Balanas’ violin and Capella Mallorquina

The fourth program of the 11th Season of Jove Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona (JOSB) (Young Symphony Orchestra of Barcelona), under the musical direction of Carlos Checa, presents us, first of all, the work Machina Humana, a concerto for electric violin by the composer Angela Luq. After its premiere in the United Kingdom and Latvia, it will be presented for the first time in Spain and will feature the virtuoso violinist Roberts Balanas. Afterwards, the same violinist will perform works by several composers arranged by himself for electric violin. In the second part, and in collaboration with the Capella Mallorquina, we will listen to the famous Requiem by Mozart.

This concert of the JOSB Cycle at the Palau de la Música Catalana is for the benefit of the Change Dyslexia project.

Performers

Roberts Balanas, violin
Capella Mallorquina (José María Moreno, conductor)
Soloists to be determined
Jove Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona*
Carlos Checa, conductor

* Grouping for educational purposes

Program

A. Luq: Machina Humana (concerto for electric violin and orchestra, premiere in Spain)
R. Balanas: arrangements of works by various composers for solo electric violin
W. A. Mozart: Requiem in D minor, K. 626

Good Friday Concert – Earth
Modest Mussorgsky A Night on Bald Mountain (version by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov)

John Adams Dharma at the Big Sur

Gustav Mahler The Song of the Earth

“I wanted to capture the moment, the so-called ‘shock of recognition,’ when one reaches the edge of the continental land mass,” wrote American composer John Adams about his composition Dharma at the Big Sur. The concerto for six-string electric violin and orchestra was written in 2003 for the opening of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Big Sur is a 150 km stretch of steep coastline in California, between Carmel-by-the-Sea in the north and San Simeon in the south, which inspired Adams to compose the work. In Kassel, Latvian violinist Roberts Balanas will perform this unique piece with his electric violin alongside the State Orchestra.

No less than life and death are at stake in Gustav Mahler’s The Song of the Earth. The superstitious composer, however, struggled with the work—after all, famous predecessors had died after their respective ninth symphonies. In this piece, Mahler sets texts from Hans Bethge’s poetry collection The Chinese Flute, which together convey the cycle of human life and the awareness of earthly transience.

The concert opens with Modest Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain. According to music journalist Christoph Vratz, the piece is a “soundtrack for getting chills.” In the version by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, alongside the witches’ sabbath and various eerie moments, the hope for redemption and peace also takes on a central role.

Guest conductor Jānis Liepiņš, a native of Riga, makes his debut in Kassel. Since 2019 he has been First Kapellmeister at the National Theatre Mannheim.

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