KRISTĪNE BALANAS /VIOLIN/
MARGARITA BALANAS /CELLO/
On February 10 at 7:00 p.m., one of the brightest, most talented and internationally acclaimed artists of our time - violinist Kristīne Balanas and cellist Margarita Balanas - will visit the Ola Foundation cultural space with a very special concert program for cello and violin.
We are honored to open the new 2024 concert season in the cultural life of Ola Foundation with such a special concert. The BALANAS sisters have dazzled audiences and performed together in concert halls around the world, so their reunion in a double concert in Latvia is a beautiful event both in the musical journey of the two sisters and in the concert experience of Ola Foundation.
The concert program is conceived as a beautiful, sensual musical conversation between the cello and violin, featuring works by G.F. Handel, J. Halvorsen, J.S. Bach, F. Schubert, M. Ravel, P. Vasks and other renowned composers.
Violinist Kristīne BALANAS is one of the fastest-rising talents on the world stage. The Times described her as a “dazzlingly virtuosic” musician.
A laureate of the prestigious Latvian Grand Music Award in the “Young Artist of the Year” category, she won third place in the important International ARD Music Competition, received the Young Talent Award from the Queen Sofía School of Excellence Foundation in Spain, and the Principal’s Prize from the Royal Academy of Music in London for her contribution to promoting the academy’s name around the world.
“Untamed, bold, thrilling performance” - this is how The Strad. magazine described Kristīne Balanas’s playing.
She studied violin at the Emīls Dārziņš Music School. She graduated with distinction from the Royal Academy of Music, where she studied with György Pauk, and from the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Kolja Blacher’s class.
In the 2023/2024 season, Kristīne is set to make her debuts with the Philharmonic Orchestras of Gran Canaria (Spain), Szczecin and the George Enescu Festival, as well as perform again with the Deutsche Philharmonie Merck orchestra, performing Brahms’s Violin Concerto with conductor Ben Palmer.
She has performed in world-famous concert halls - the Berlin Philharmonie, London’s Southbank Centre, Purcell Room and Barbican Hall, Carnegie Hall in New York, among others.
As a soloist, she has performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Paris Chamber Orchestra, Israel’s “Camerata Jerusalem”, the Marche Philharmonic Orchestra in Italy, the Sendai Symphony Orchestra in Japan, the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in Ireland, “Cardiff Sinfonietta” and others.
Cellist Margarita BALANAS is one of the brightest young cellists of her generation.
Margarita is a laureate of several international competitions and a recipient of scholarships from several foundations - she was awarded the prestigious ABRSM Scholarship, the “Martin Music Scholarship Fund” scholarship and the Royal Academy of Music Bicentenary Scholarship to record her debut album with “Linn Records” in 2021. She was nominated for the Grand Music Award in the “Young Musician of the Year 2018” category.
Margarita has performed in the most prestigious concert halls around the world - Carnegie Hall in New York, the Berlin Philharmonie and others, performing with renowned orchestras such as those of Munich, Barcelona, Berlin, Marche, Malta and others, as well as appearing on Classic FM, Scala Radio, BBC Radio 3 In Tune.
Margarita currently studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London in Professor Mats Lidström’s class. She has participated in masterclasses led by Natalia Gutman, Mischa Maisky, Raphael Wallfisch, Robert Cohen and others, and has already given masterclasses herself in England and North America.
In the 2023/2024 season, Margarita is conductor Paavo Järvi’s assistant at Zurich’s “Tonhalle-Orchester”. This year’s highlights include performances with the Deutsche Philharmonie Merck orchestra, appearances at the Dresden and Moritzburg music festivals, and tours across the United States and Europe with Anne-Sophie Mutter and the “Mutter Virtuosi” orchestra. Margarita will conduct Zurich’s Tonhalle-Orchester, Orquestra Do Algarve, where her sister, violinist Kristīne Balanas, will perform as a soloist, Camerata at the Cayman Arts Festival, and the ANONIMI orchestra. Margarita is the founder and music director of the orchestra and charitable organization ANONIMI.
