This Saturday, August 6, American baritone and bass Christopher Leeks will celebrate the ten-year anniversary of his debut as an opera singer in Latvia, as well as the founding of the organization “The American Friends in Latvia” uniting American and Latvian artists, in the Beletage Hall of the Latvian National Opera and Ballet.
The anniversary will be celebrated with a free concert in which Christopher Leech will be joined by two internationally known American opera singers – tenor Nicholas Simpson and soprano Francesca Aguado. The repertoire will include both ancient songs and arias from popular operas. The trio will also perform works dedicated to this event by Latvian composers Artas Jēkabsone and Dace Aperāne, joined by pianist Ilze Ozoliņa and violinist Diāna Reimane. The general theme of the concert program will be “Roaring 20s”, emphasizing the vocal music of the 18th, 19th, 20th and 20th centuries.
Baritone and bass Christopher Leach is not a stranger here, as in the last ten years he has occasionally maintained artistic ties with Riga, performing at various events related to opera and jazz music.
He gained recognition with his repertoire of opera and oratorio, baroque songs and jazz standards. After graduating from the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, Leach performed at the Rossini Opera Festival, the Pesaro and Spoleto Festivals in Italy, the Summer Music Festival in Salzburg, the New York City Opera, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Opera Theater of St. Louis, the Connecticut Lyric Opera, the New Orleans Opera, the Birmingham Opera, the Toulouse Opera and many other places.
About the Riga concert. “The program will explore the anatomy of the centuries, highlighting how each one experiences its difficult third decade or twenties,” says Christopher Leech. “It is the moment when each century moves on from the identity and authority of the previous one and struggles to firmly assert its own identity and political direction. In this program, we will present music that reflects the moods, struggles and hopes of each decade, to let us understand that art and music were and will be what heals us in such moments, helps us endure difficulties, overcome them and ultimately flourish again. Such a message is very important right now, because it is a reminder that there are better days ahead of us.”
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