August 7 at 20.00 Raimonds Tiguls open-air concert “Tiguļkalns” will take place in Talsi for the tenth time, where the composer invites his music friends and like-minded people together every year on the highest of the nine hills of the city, creating a special evening for each concert visitor.
This year’s central musical event in Tiguļkalns will be a performance of composer Raimonds Tiguls’ oratorio “Jūras grāmata”, which will be performed together with organist Iveta Apkalns, Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, State Academic Choir “Latvija”, conducted by Maris Sirmas. The work created with Nora Iksten’s libretto had its world premiere in 2019, at the opening of Ventspils Concert Hall “Latvija”.
Inta Zēgnere: Talsi has nine hills with very beautiful names – Ķēniņkalns, Dzirnavkalns, Sauleskalns. But among them, of course, Tiguļkalns has become the best known – and not because it is the highest, but because you are organizing a festival of music there. Do you remember your first conscious feelings associated with this mountain? Have you ever found out that you have your own mountain but other boys don’t?
When I was studying in primary school in Talsi, opapist Ernests Tiguls told about it, but
the biggest surprise for me was that we even have Tiguļu Street! As a child, I knew that the main street was Lenina Street, and here for us – Tiguļu Street. It made me think a little more. (laughs)
Of course, the mountain. The time came when I started organizing my concerts there.
And Tiguļu Street is still there?
Yes, right next to the mountain.
The concerts were after that, but knowing about these conversations with my grandfather and about the existence of this mountain – didn’t you want to go there, climb up and feel like a child – Tiguļkalns, this is my mountain?
I spent my plants and childhood nearby, where I still live and write music – in Talsi Pauguraine, which is a very picturesque and beautiful place in itself, and childhood trails are right here: there are country roads, trails and forest trails. There is also one of the highest places in Kurzeme – Kamparkalns. These were the trails and paths of my childhood, which I walked across and still every summer I notice a curve going there alone and remembering where I rode my ski and motorcycle as a child – I had an old motorcycle with which I crossed all the roads. These are the places of my childhood.
Tiguļkalns is more connected to me with concerts that I started organizing ten years ago. In my first year, I had guests from Iceland, with whom we made recordings, which we released on the album Islands.
At that time we also had a concert in Riga Dome, and a few days later in Tiguļkalns – when we went there, one of my Icelandic friends, composer Hilmarsons, who is the leader of goddesses in Iceland, when we went to Tiguļkalns, literally breathed and said – yes, this is such a natural cathedral … There is a special energy here, concerts are needed here!
Yes, it was an impressive opinion from an Icelandic friend. The idea itself came a little faster – I concluded that there is really a beautiful place here with 19 oaks. In 2010, I got a property, started playing it and already wrote my first compositions. As one of the first compositions for a henga with a choir, it was written for the choir “While …” – Moonlight Sound Design, which is again a whole story, how I got from Tiguļkalns to Carnegie Hall – in an absolutely incredible way, and later these notes were released in America: even today choirs sing this piece around the world.
In fact, the Heng was the sonic impulse for concerts in Tiguļkalns. The first time I solemnly played music on this mountain was when I went there alone with a hengo, sat in the middle of an oak circle, started playing this instrument and felt that it resonates so beautifully in the oak branches …
There really was a lot of energy, and at that moment I decided that there should be concerts here – that I would like to play my music here and invite my musical friends and listeners to join every year, so I call them more than concerts, but together.
This is already the 10th anniversary year, it will also be celebrated on a large scale. It seems that such a scale has not been experienced on the mountain yet, right?
Such a scope has not been experienced yet, yes – in terms of musicians: the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra and the academic choir “Latvija”, Iveta Apkalna, the organ from the Dzintari Concert Hall will be brought, Andrejs Osokins will also visit and have an acoustic piano. Well, yes …
Then, of course, all this leads us to think that your ambitious oratorio “The Book of the Sea” will be played on this mountain on Saturday.
Yes, I am looking forward to tonight and I want to listen to this piece again …
More and more – in the record.
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