Early music festival
Photo: Publicity image
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Early music festival
This week, one of the most colorful cultural events of the summer is taking place in Latvia – the “Ancient Music Festival”, which will take place from July 6 to 9 in Riga’s churches and concert halls, as well as in the masterpiece of the Italian architect Rastrelli – the Rundāle Palace. The festival will feature the works of Henry Purcell, Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Claudio Monteverdi and other baroque greats. The music will be complemented by gorgeous costumes, authentic medieval and baroque instruments and wonderful venue architecture. Both Latvian and foreign artists will take part in the concert.
One of the leading Scandinavian chamber orchestras – “O/Modernt” – will perform at the opening concert of the “Early Music Festival” on July 6 in the Great Guild, with a program of compositions by Domenico Pellegrini, Henry Purcell, Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, as well as baroque music from the Mexican region. The soloists of the concert will be the Swedish mezzo-soprano of Chilean origin – Luciana Mancini and the excellent violinist, leader of the chamber orchestra – Hugo Tičati. On July 8, the leading medieval and renaissance vocal group “Schola Cantorum Riga” in the Baltic States will perform a night concert in Riga Cathedral, performing ancient music, especially the authentic singing of the Gregorian chorale. On July 9, creative workshops and a children’s concert performance “Karalis Strazdubarda” will begin at the Rundāle Palace. The well-known fairy tale of the Brothers Grimm will be played to the sounds of ancient music – the compositions of the English composer Henry Purcell. Singers – Beāte Zviedre, Juris Jope, Kalvis Kalniņš, Ilona Bagele, Juris Kaukulis, as well as soloists of the Latvian Radio Choir – Agate Pooka, Kārlis Rūtentāls, Jānis Kokins will take part in the concert. Students of the Riga Ballet School will also play various roles, the concert will be conducted by the attractive Karina Bērziņa. On the evening of July 9, in the garden of Rundāle Palace, the festival will be closed by Antonio Vivaldi’s cycle of violin concerts “Seasons” – one of the most popular classical music opuses, which has experienced countless arrangements and interpretations around the world, as well as by composers Michel Richard Delalan, Jean-Baptiste Lulli, Giuseppe Samartini and Jean-Philippe Ramo’s compositions. Together with “Sinfonietta Rīga”, conducted by Normunda Schne, the excellent violinist, soloist of the world’s leading orchestras, Kristīne Balanas, will also participate in the concert.
The concert of the group “Lővőlīgais tipis” on the Saulkrasti stage
Photo: Uldis Siliņš
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Tour “I’m already 30” of the group “Lůvůlīgais tipus”
The lyrics of the songs of the group “Lůvůlīgais tipis” have always seemed to me to be worthy of a philologist’s diploma thesis. The intellectual hit, which the popular music reviewer Kaspars Zaviļeiskis calls “humor rock”, always charges with catchy melodies and mouth-watering, yet paradoxical lyrics. And now, this group’s repertoire, similar to a refreshing vitamin and ginger cocktail, is available on the “Auspicious type” all-Latvian tour, which started already on July 1 at the Saulkrasti stage, when it was heated up by the usual group composition: Andris Freidenfelds (voice), Normunds Jakušonoks (voice, keys), Đirts Lūsis (voice, guitar), Kaspars Tīmanis (voice, trombone), Oskars Ozoliņš (trumpet, voice), Artūrs Kutepovs (guitar), Pēteris Liepiņš (guitar), Haralds Stenclavs (keyboards) and Ainis Zavackis (percussion), joining the former to the group members Andri Ābelīt (trumpet) and Anda L. or Anda Budļevska (voice).
Even more atmospheric pressure was created by the band’s fans, enthusiastically singing along to such megahits as “Aluminium pig”, “Fraze”, “Cinekus egle son”, “Naukšeni disco”, “Gin with tonic”, “Pie, come out!”, “Let “, “Omnibus” and others no less balanced.
The concert series will continue this week on July 8 in Saldu and July 9 in Roja.
Monograph “The Great Denier”
Photo: Publicity image
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Was Andrejs Upits a sexist?
Was Andrejs Upīts not only a writer – an ideologue of the Soviet era, a prophet of socialist realism, but also a sexist (even despite the strong female characters in the novels “Sieviete”, “Zelts” and “Green Earth”, not to mention the play “Joan of Arc” )? This is one of the questions posed by the monograph “The Great Denier”. In the literary series “Es esmu”, in which today’s writers write novels about 13 literati of the past, while literary scholars write monographs about these same literati in parallel, Andrejs Upīts is, next to Vilis Lācim, the most controversial and disliked character in the history of the Latvian people.
Arnis Koroševskis is a young literary scholar and critic who is a representative of the independent Latvian generation, having never experienced Soviet times in his life. His monograph on Andreja Upīti is the first case when the literary scholar’s work in the “I am” series is published even before the prose version of his partner, the writer. Reading the monograph is exciting, especially if you have read something from Upiš, at least “Green Earth”. It reminds us that Upīts was a prominent writer long before the Soviet occupation, even long before the founding of independent Latvia before the war. Koroszewski has also studied and cites anonymous letters that Upit received and kept. “It’s just that not a single pupil or student reads your books. They answer: “We hate the works of that old fool”. As rude as you are, your books are just as boring”, such a letter was signed by “young people”. Is it so, this question should be asked by each reader of Upis, and Arnis Koroshevskis also helps to find the answer.
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