The International Sacred Music Festival / Article will take place at the end of the summer with the theme “Peace”

At the end of the summer, from August 19 to September 11, the State Academic Choir “Latvija” and its artistic director Māris Sirmais invite their listeners to the 24th International Sacred Music Festival. This year, the festival will bring together three of Latvia’s brightest orchestras and guest artists from near and far European countries. The festival will feature several Latvian and world premieres, as well as world-renowned works of vocal symphony music, the organizers informed.

This year, the main motive of the festival is “Peace”, therefore in the opening concert on August 19, Riga St. At St. Peter’s Church, listeners will be introduced to the “Missa pro pace” (“Mesa for Peace”) by the Polish minimalist and contemporary music composer Wojciech Killar. Mesa premiered in 2001 as a commissioned work dedicated to the centenary of the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra. The State Academic Choir “Latvija”, Liepāja Symphony Orchestra, soloists Viktorija Pakalniece (soprano), Sniedze Kaņepe (mezzo-soprano), Rafals Bartminskis (tenor, Poland) and Rihards Mačanovskis (bass) will take part in the performance “Mesa par peace”. The artistic director of the festival Māris Sirmais will take the conductor’s stand. In cooperation with the South Kurzeme festival “Rimbenieks” this program will be heard again in Liepāja St. St. Joseph’s Cathedral on August 20.

In cooperation with the 41st International Hanseatic Days in Riga and the Riga City Council, a concert “Hanseatic Music from France” will be performed on August 19. The concert will be the opening of the exhibition “HANSEartWORKS”. It is intended in accordance with the setting of the exhibition – to seek the embodiment of the Hanseatic values ​​of the past into the future and is being developed as a joint project of synthesis and interplay of early music and electronic music. The concert will feature Gertrude Yeromenko (harpsichord), Ansis Bētiņš (tenor), Jeanne Maria Ljjevra (soprano, France), Agnese Kanniņa (violin) and DJ Monsta. Admission to the concert is by invitation only.

On August 26, Riga St. One of the most outstanding Estonian music ensembles in the world – the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir – will delight the audience with a solo concert in St. John’s Church. The concert will feature Estonian composer Arvo Pert’s “An den Wassern zu Babel” (“By the Waters of Babel”), one of his best-known works “Deer’s Cry” and “Latvian Holy Nicholas” ”(“ O Holy Father Nicholas ”). At the end of the concert, a requiem by the French composer Maurice Durufle will be played. At the conductor’s desk: choir founder and honorary conductor Tenu Kaljuste.

For the third year in a row, supporting Latvia’s new talents and promoting their growth, the festival organizers will invite the Riga Dome Choir School Gospel Choir, led by conductor Una Stade, to cooperate. This year the choir will create a musical performance that will be performed at Riga St. Peter’s Church on August 28 at 7 p.m.

Continuing the tradition of ordering and playing new works by Latvian composers at the festival, Riga St. The premiere of Anna Ķirse’s new work “Carmen Sibyllae” (“Kūmu Sibilla”), inspired by the fourth eclipse of the Roman poet Virgil “Bucolikas”, will be performed at St. Peter’s Church on September 2. The concert will also feature works written for the choir a cappella – Irina Mikhailovska’s “Triptych” and Raimonds Tigula’s “I Ask You, God” in the words of Juris Rubins. In honor of the memory of the composer Peter Bhutan and fulfilling his request, the State Academic Choir “Latvia” and “Sinfonietta Riga” conducted by Maris Sirmas will play an opus for mixed choir and orchestra “Gloria”.

The closing concert is dedicated to the tragic events of September 11 in the United States, which took place twenty years ago. The concert will feature John Adams’ work “On The Transmigration of Souls”, which was premiered a year after the terrorist attack in New York and is dedicated to the memory of the departed, as well as his ambitious opium “Harmonium”. The Latvian National Symphony Orchestra will participate in the concert together with the State Academic Choir “Latvia”; conductor Maris Sirmais. The closing concert of the festival will be performed in Riga Dome, at 19.00.

Festival organizers ask listeners to note that the conditions for attending concerts depend on government regulations. Due to the fact that it is not possible to provide a distance of two meters at the festival venues, the concerts can be attended only by persons who have completed a full vaccination course or become ill with Covid-19 with a valid Covid-19 certificate – it can be obtained at www.covid19sertifikats.lv.

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