A concert entitled "California dreaming: from baroque to rock" was held in the co-production of two Bokele festivals - KotorArt and Tivat Music Festival. On Friday, August 2, the festival orchestra under the conductor's leadership performed in Tivat's Dom voške ("Porto Montenegro") Nira Kabareti, while he was a soloist Gilles Apap, a violinist recognized on the international stage for his virtuosity and for expanding the standard violin repertoire with jazz and traditional music from all over the world.
The first part of the name of the concert, in fact, referred to the collaboration of the festival with Santa Barbara and its artists. Namely, the members of the string quartet that performed the day before at Prčanje were the leaders of the Festival Orchestra, just as they are in their home Symphony Orchestra of Santa Barbara, whose chief conductor is Cabareti. They introduced the audience to this collaboration at the beginning of the program Ratimir Martinović, general director KotorArta i Dragana Jovanovic, artistic director of the Tivat Music Festival. The other second part of the name, on the other hand, was a metaphor for the programming concept based on the interweaving of art music styles with jazz, rock and traditional music - all mainly arranged by violinist Žil Apap.
The career of Apapa, a lifelong collaborator and favorite Yehudija Menjuhina, was marked by performances with renowned world orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the San Francisco, Vancouver and Hamburg symphony orchestras, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, then the Boston, Israel and Russian National Philharmonic. At the Tivat concert, Apap chose a repertoire that is in line with what he usually does with his quartet "The Colors of Invention" - a kind of fusion of classical works Vivaldi, Baha, Elgara, of Forgiveness i Bartoka on the one hand, and traditional folklore melos, on the other. When it comes to jazz and traditional music that we listened to, Apap has nurtured these genres for years at concerts with his ethno-jazz band Meduoteran and the crossover music ensemble The Transylvanian Mountain Boys. In Tivat, however, the work of "Gusla", our composer, represented an exception Nina Perovic.
The multiplicity of genres followed the concert program as a whole, although the chronological sequence still moved from classical to popular genres. In this regard, the concert began with works Fritz Chrysler, one of the most important violinists in the history of music, then Edvard Elgar, and already before Summer from "Four Seasons" by Antonio Vivaldi, a step was made towards the music of famous Irish violinists, Edija Kelija i Fehija lawsuit. In the next block, Apap performed pieces and parts of well-known compositions with the Festival Orchestra Bela Bartok ("Evening in the Village"), by Johan Sebastian Bach (second movement from the Violin Concerto in E major) and Manuel de Falja ("The Spanish Game" from the opera "Life is Short").
When it comes to non-artistic genres, in addition to the song "Yesterday" by "The Beatles" in the orchestral version, we listened to arrangements of traditional music in which Romanian and Irish folklore were recognized, as well as American bluegrass.
A violinist with an energetic character, Žil Apap evoked the sympathy of the audience with his interpretation, but also the joy of playing in the members of the Festival Orchestra. His direct access to the stage obviously contributed to this. In constant movement through the orchestra and in front of it, Apap encouraged musical communication with individual performers. Moreover, this barefoot artist (on stage), of extraordinary virtuosity, but also refined and elegant color of the violin sound, managed to gain the attention of not only the audience with his charisma, but also directed the attention of the orchestra to himself.
Bonus video:
