The Choral Journey of “Mārtiņkori”: From Germany to Latvia and Beyond

The four parts of Rainis’s poem “Daugava”, whose musical score was last corrected by the composer Mārtiņš Brauns only two months before his death, became one of the most emotional moments of the less than ten-year collaboration with the “Mārtiņkori” for the conductor Kristiana Krieva at the recent choir show. She says: “Just before covid, we had planned to sing the whole cycle together with the “Norise” choir, we studied it very hard. The concert was interrupted by covid, and we were very happy to sing these parts in the show. Then I realized that this choir had this some parts of the cycle with the subtexts that are in there are like a nail on the head.”

Most of the choristers of “Mārtiņkor” were born and grew up in other countries and even on other continents – USA, Canada, England, Australia, but now they have gathered to sing together in Latvia. The origins of the choir can be traced back to the Münster Latvian Gymnasium in Germany, it was founded in 1979 by the musically gifted mathematics teacher Mārtiņš Zandbergs. To talk about the history of the choir, you should visit Laima and Ulda Dimishevsky. In a quiet Pārdaugava street, there is a small house where a girl from Canada and a guy from Latvia live, they also met in Germany, Münster, but now they live in Latvia and sing in “Mārtiņkorī”.

Laima Dimiševska, a teacher at the International School of Latvia, is the president of “Mārtiņkora”, she sings the second viola, and her husband, the director of the “Latvians in the World” museum, the tenor.

How did their parents decide to send them to study in Munster? Laima says: “It started with the education of Latvianness. There were children’s summer camps, Latvian summer high schools and six weeks every summer. Acquaintances had sent their children to Münster, and then the parents thought that this was the next step – to live among Latvians from all over the country for one year in the world’s Münster. It was 1988, Latvia was not yet free.” Uldis adds: “My parents didn’t send me to Münster. I myself found an article about Münster in a newspaper, and it was like a hook in the mouth. I got there in 1994, I finished school a year before it closed. It was a standard German gymnasium with all the requirements.” But Laima returned to Münster in 1994 to work as a boarding school teacher. “For supervising young people,” laughs Uldis. “That’s how we met.” Mārtiņš Zandberg was his mathematics teacher. “He left school in the last year and we had to go to a German gymnasium to learn probability theory in German. It was a difficult task.” However, Uldis sang in the Minster mixed choir led by Mārtiņš, whose rehearsals took place in the Latvian center in Minster.

Laima and Uldis lived in Canada for some time after meeting in Münster. After returning to Latvia, Laima was the first to go to the “Mārtiņkori”: “The first child was born, we thought about what to do next, then we thought of going to Latvia, to the unknown. I had heard that there is such a choir here, where former Minsterians sing. I think I need one evenings a week to get away from the children. Then I started singing in the “Mārtińkorī”. That was in the fall of 2006. A year later, I persuaded Uldi as well.”

Uldis continues: “I didn’t sing during the pandemic, because for me the choir is more about singing together with other people. How can you sing in your bedroom! It’s once a week when you have to go – such an easy regime. People feel more free in the “Mārtiņkor” than in the standard Latvian choir. choirs are usually strictly disciplined in their relationship with the conductor, where everything is determined by someone from above. Here people gather more and sing together, after the choir they occasionally leave to talk. It’s a tradition that comes from Münster, from the time of exile.”

However, Laima remembers her first performances at the song festival in Latvia with deep emotions.

“When I sang a song here for the first time at the festival, it was special, several songs brought me to tears. Then it’s different than singing a concert in a foreign space, or in exile. The forests are rustling around you in Mežapark, it’s great!”

In the residence of the German ambassador in Mežaparka, on May 17, the song “Singers’ contribution”, which is the motto of “Mārtiņkora”, was played. Latvijas Radio meets the founder of the choir Mārtiņas Zandberg, now a regular singer in this choir, at an event where, with the participation of Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņas (“Jaunā Vienotība”), they commemorate 25 years since the last graduation from the Münster Latvian Gymnasium. Zandberg went to Latvia in 1997.

A wonderful fate for one emigration choir – to move to Latvia together with many singers!

“Yes, it’s the only choir I know like that. But it was also the youngest choir in exile,” says Zandberg. “For me, all the sopranos were 18 years old, the others were in their fifties. The Minster mixed choir was good. New voices, and those young people moved to Latvia after 10 years. Now we believe that we are actually a local choir, we also participate in shows. We are in the Latvian choirs rhythm. We started again here in Latvia in 2000. It is no longer the case that choirs are flourishing abroad. Now a group of singers has gathered in Münster who want to participate in the song festival. There are still choirs in big centers – London, Chicago, New York. Now there is no more exile, but the diaspora, the choral tradition is old.”

Zinta, the daughter of Andrejs Jansons, the outstanding Latvian choir composer and conductor who passed away last year, also sings in “Mārtiņkorī”, and her brother Mārcis sings in the Michigan Latvian Choir in America, Kalamazoo. It is one of 46 diaspora choirs that will participate in this song festival.

Marcis says that he has to spend five to six hours on the road from his place of residence in Detroit to Kalamazoo, but the group of singers, who come to rehearsals from Milwaukee, have to travel even longer. Rehearsals are held once every two weeks. Most of the singers are going to go to the song festival. “If there wasn’t a song festival, there wouldn’t be this choir,” admits Mārcis.

In 2016, he lived and worked in Latvia, then together with his wife Ieva, he also sang in “Mārtiņkorī”. But his father Andrejs Jansons worked in music almost until the last day of his life. When the Latvian Choir of Michigan was formed two years ago, Andrejs Jansons was the first person the singers approached for the position of conductor. At the time, the goal was the Minneapolis Song Festival in the summer of 2022. “I took him to rehearsals, he was already 81 years old, we both managed to spend a nice time together,” says the conductor’s son. Daughter Zinta mentions: “He was already appointed as the honorary chief conductor of the song festival in Latvia.”

“It was a life mission for Andrei,” continues his son Marcis. “He was like a pastor, he was not interested in material things. The theme of Latvian music and especially the theme of the choir – it was almost his religion and the religion of his family.” But Zinta adds: “Singing in a Latvian choir is a direct link to Latvia, such an automatic bridge.”