Sold-Out Performance for the Cellist and Il Pomo d’Oro Orchestra. Embassy Collaboration with the “Lielais Dzintars” Concert Hall
On Saturday, 24 May, the “Lielais Dzintars” (“Great Amber”) Concert Hall in Liepaja hosted the concert Vivaldi. Venice, featuring renowned cellist and composer Giovanni Sollima alongside the Il Pomo d’Oro Orchestra. Co-organised by the Embassy of Italy in Riga, the event played to a sold-out audience, establishing itself as one of the highlights of Liepaja’s musical season and a key moment in the 2025 Italian-Latvian cultural programme.
Sollima offered the audience a unique musical journey inspired by the Republic of Venice’s historical projection toward the southeastern Mediterranean. He revived little-known concertos by Antonio Vivaldi and interwove them with traditional sounds from Cyprus and the Arbëreshë heritage. The performance, striking a balance between baroque precision and contemporary inventiveness, captured the cosmopolitan and visionary spirit of 18th-century Venice.
The concert was part of a broader partnership launched by the Embassy with the “Great Amber” Hall in Liepaja, one of Latvia’s leading music institutions. Opened in 2015 and designed by Austrian architect Volker Giencke, the hall is distinguished by its iconic amber-hued glass cone design. In addition to its 1,024-seat main auditorium, it also features a 180-seat chamber hall and an experimental space, hosting over 200 events annually, including concerts, performances, and conferences.
Within this framework of cooperation, the Embassy also co-organised the sold-out concert by the Apulian ensemble La Cantiga de la Serena on 13 April. Altogether, the two initiatives drew over two thousand attendees, reflecting the strong interest of the Latvian public in Italian musical excellence.
Through events like Vivaldi. Venice, the Embassy of Italy continues to promote cultural diplomacy as a tool for dialogue and cooperation between institutions and communities, strengthening ties between Italy and Latvia through the universal language of music.
Photo: Lielais Dzintars Concert Hall
