Festival “deciBels” starts – six premieres of Latvian composers in the program this year / Article

On October 4, the seventh contemporary music festival “deciBels” was opened at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music (JVLMA). Concerts and master classes of various genres are expected there. The program of the second day of the festival includes its special guests from Belgium, the contemporary music ensemble “Fractales”, but in the following days performances by Latvian musicians are also expected.

Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music contemporary music festival “” deciBels ”brings together new music composers and performers who want to move the audience out of the usual comfort zone. Rolands Kronlaks, the artistic director of the festival, says: “The deciBels festival is taking place for the seventh time, and our usual time is February – March, but this time the festival has been moved to October due to Covid-19 restrictions.

As master classes are very important in this festival, not just concerts, we decided to postpone the festival instead of offering it “online”. “

Six premieres of Latvia’s youngest generation of composers are expected at the festival’s concerts. Latvian performing arts festival is represented by “Trio Metamorfoze” and saxophonist Aigars Raumanis, whose concert is expected on Wednesday, October 6.

“I have been entrusted with four premieres, and each one is in a completely different field, there is one where there is only a saxophone, there is a saxophone and electronics, a saxophone with pedal effect, and everyone tries to stretch that saxophone in their own direction and understand how it works,” reveals Aigars Raumanis . “Plato Buravickis writes about nature pollution, about nature problems, Alise Rancāne writes about internal personality changes, which have always been topical, Marita Semjonova writes about people talking to each other, about communication, and Gaitis Jānis Pujāts writes about how he gets into different places and, when they return, look at the situation differently. “

Plato Buravickis has created a new work “The Age of Carbon”. The composer explains: “The carbon age was long before the dinosaurs, there is much more time between us and the dinosaurs than between the dinosaurs and their carbon age. It was an era of insects – huge dragonflies flew around, and at that time the whole layer we are now using was formed, which stimulates our growth as a type of culture, stimulates culture, also stimulates wars. At that time, there was 30% oxygen in the air, now about 21% oxygen. How does sound spread in that air? What sounds were there around? We can only imagine and imagine what it was. ”

This year, one of the most creative and active participants in the world of contemporary music – the ensemble “Fractales” from Belgium – has arrived. They will not only perform with the Belgian electronic music star, composer Gilles Gober, but will also give master classes for young Latvian musicians and composers.

Renata Kambarova (Belgium / Azerbaijan), a member of the Fractales ensemble, talks about her participation in the festival: We like to experiment, we like to look for sounds that will surprise the audience. We believe that contemporary academic music is not the only style, so in each concert we try to find different compositions and vary the styles that listeners can find in our concerts. ”

The constant value of the festival is the ethno-jazz concerts, which will take place this year at the end of the festival on October 8 in the “Riga Art Space”.

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