On Saturday, February 18, the Latvian Radio sound engineer Augustīns Delle will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award at the “Golden Microphones’23” award ceremony for Latvian music recordings, LETA agency was informed by the organizers.
Delle has recorded almost 5000 music recordings, including for Raimond Paul, Robbie Williams, Lolita Ritmanis and others. “You have a wonderful sound equipment and excellent acoustics, but the best thing you have is Gustins,” British singer Robbie Williams said after the recording in Latvian Radio 1 studio. Augustīns Delle, known as Gusta, performed the duties of a sound engineer at Latvian Radio from 1969 to 2022.
Delle was born on March 21, 1947 in Riga, father Kārlis was an electromechanic, mother – manager of the costume workshop of the National Opera, four children grew up in the family. After graduating from the Riga Electromechanical Technical School in 1965, Delle briefly worked as a stacker, freight forwarder in the port, and also as an artist-designer, until he got a job as a sound recording technician at the Riga Cinema Studio. Half a year later, he started working at Latvian Radio, initially in the part of non-studio broadcasts, providing live broadcasts from the Great Hall of the University of Latvia, the Great Guild, the National Opera and other places. There were business trips to Liepāja stage “Pūt, vējini”, Mežaparka’s Big stage.
Delle’s daughters – Katrīna Bramberga and Kristīne Delle – have followed in Delle’s footsteps, the engineer’s grandson Krišjānis Stikāns has also added to the technical staff of Latvian Radio, while his wife Laima Eglīte is an artist. After retiring in 2022, Delle lives in a country house in Murjāņi and, listening to the music playing on the radio, remembers the times when it was recorded and the people we can thank for the rich sound archive.
Don, “Citi zezeni”, “Astro’n’out”, “Iron Wolf”, “DaGamba”, Aija Andrejeva, Olga Rajecka, “Tautumeitas”, roland če, Finķis, Ozol and others will perform at the ceremony concert. This year, spectators are also invited to the ceremony in person, tickets can be found at “ekase.lv”. “Zelta Mikrofona’23” ceremony is co-financed by LaIPA, Ministry of Culture.
