Those who regularly go through the Old Town in their course, especially along Kaļķu Street, have probably noticed the many street musicians who play music in different volumes and qualities, earning a living and delighting tourists. As the well-known interpreter of early music, the head of the Department of Early Music of the Academy of Music and the artistic director of the baroque music orchestra «Collegium Musicum Riga» Maris Kupčs, says in a conversation with Vakara Zoods, the situation with street musicians in Old Riga has become almost tragic.
Terrible karaoke, a pitiful lady and a roaring guitarist
“In my opinion, its low-quality music making is also begging, moreover, in an aggressive form, because it cannot be called making music,” says Māris, whose story about these characters is really colorful: “Of course, sometimes very good artists play here, whose performance is not ashamed. But some examples are quite harsh: for example, an older gentleman with a portable sound device who sings karaoke – mostly Sinatra and other beautiful songs, but does so terribly, because his tone is different from the original that it should be crying! In addition, the recorded sound is of very poor quality and the speaker beeps. He only creates bad emotions! Someone will pity him a penny… »
Maris also mentions an older lady who is sitting by the wall of the house, chanting a trio and singing folk songs, “all of which are in about one indefinable melody, unfortunate, and it is not professional at all. Of course, everyone regrets him, but it is impossible to listen to it for a long time. And, after all, there are social services. ”
The third musician, as Maris describes him, is “a young man with a guitar who screams in a bitten voice, and as he goes three steps further, hearing it, it seems that someone is being cut veins or tortured with burning skewers”. Summarizing his story, Māris Kupčs adds – unfortunately, all these “artists” think that they sing brilliantly and that they “have brought us all joy”. Employees and visitors of the surrounding offices and cafes, who are hardly enthusiastic about it, are forced to listen to it all. «When the former opera singer Uldis Laiškalns sometimes sings here, then against the background of the above he sounds really good, because you can distinguish the melody and the text. But after him comes someone who has been fighting the “green dragon” for two weeks, and then, listening to Christmas songs in March, only bad emotions arise rodas »
Read the full article in the latest issue of “Vakara Ziņas”!
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