Kremerata Baltica is a chamber orchestra consisting of young talented musicians from Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). It was founded by Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer in 1997. “I am not living in an ivory tower”, says Latvian master violinist. And so he does not have any fear of exploring new things. Particularly important to him, he emphasizes, is that behind the music there is a genuine statement.

The latest Kremerata Baltica project “Pictures from the East” is a joint venture with Syrian artist Nizar Ali Badr, which focuses on the dramatic situation in the Middle East and the current refugee problem. Nizar Ali Badr has been capturing the story of refugees from his country, using self-collected pebble-stones from his local beach. His art has become the inspiration for a unique film – the concept of Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer, who asked Georgian animator Sandro Kancheli to bring the stone figures to life along with his music. The results are artful poetic animations that show yet nothing but oppression and violence, images of life and death in Syria.

“This artist and I, we speak a common language”, says Gidon Kremer, although he has never met Nizar Ali Badr personally. The master violinist discovered Ali Badr’s works of art trough the Internet and immediately had the idea to combine them with music – with highly romantic classical music, played by Kremarata Baltica during concerts. The idea came from Gidon Kremer’s wish “that someone who has so much horror around himself, does not forget the Beautiful”, as he says.