The man who brought the light. Farewell words of colleagues to conductor Edgars Račevskis / Article

This loss to Latvian choral music, the Song Festival movement and our culture is great and invaluable. However, the sadness is also bright – because the long-time chief conductor, teacher and composer of the Song Festival, maestro Edgars Račevskis, has lived a powerful and fulfilled life.

Smiling, supportive, always very energetic and full of ideas. Maestro Edgar Rachevsky inspired the people around him. “Maestro was a very pleasant interlocutor, he never put himself above others, it was always interesting to talk to him, he was such an invisible generator of ideas all the time – despite the fact that he was not in the epicenter, he didn’t work so well. , there was always such a very creative active atmosphere, “Mārtiņš Klišāns, the chief conductor of the General Latvian Song and Dance Festival, shares his memories.

Choral conductor, teacher and composer Edgars Račevskis will be most vividly remembered as an emotional and energetic man, whose gestures, eyes and hands are followed by thousands of singers and musicians. Račevskis has worked as a conductor in the State Academic Choir “Latvija”, has been the chief choirmaster of the Latvian National Opera Choir and a long-term artistic director of the Latvian Radio Choir. Maestro has founded and conducted the men’s choir “Gaudeamus” and the mixed choir “Sonore”, as well as the men’s choir of the Riga Latvian Society House. Maestro was an important choir-loving singer. Like him himself noted at the end of last year: “People are fascinated, people with their soul, their attitude towards choral art, music, towards being together. It is a life in live music and it, of course, attracts, and it is very exciting, interesting, enjoyable, and participate yourself. “

Throughout his creative life, Edgars Račevskis has taught young conductors, many of whom have followed his teacher and become chief conductors of the Song Festival.

“Both a teacher and a conductor full of humanity, cozy, but at the same time very demanding and devoting everything to music,” describes conductor Aira Birziņa.

Conductor Mārtiņš Ozoliņš says about the maestro:

“Teacher in capital letters. A like-minded person, a person who can inspire, a personality that will remain in our minds and memories for a long time to come.”

Conductor Edgars Vitols had the good fortune to get to know him as a child, without even realizing what a joke-loving parent is: I understood what I had fortunately. “

Edgar Vitols says that he could learn a lot from the maestro, because the choir always sounded very special in his hands. In his vivid memory is a simple case many years ago: “I had the opportunity to conduct with the choir of the Academy of Music as a lecturer at the Academy, and he comes so paternally, responds, puts his hand on his shoulder -” well, boy, well, these are good for you “

For more than 50 years, Rachevsky has performed in front of thousands of singers on the Grand Stage of Mežaparks. “In my memories, Edgars Račevskis will be the chief conductor in the biggest letters. Because of his demandingness, his struggle for every detail in joint rehearsals, it was unquenchable,” says Aira Birziņa.

Edgars Račevskis first joined the Chief Conductor of the Song Festival in 1970. Four hundred years ago, the Latvian Centennial Song Festival was his twelfth. In them, he conducted – as he put it – his company piece “There will be a song forever”, as well as Lucia Garuta’s prayer “Our Father in Heaven”. This choral song, which was banned throughout the Soviet years, was very special to Edgar Rachevsky. He also conducted it in the 1990s, the first time since the restoration of independence, when exile choirs had also arrived in Latvia.

“Lūcija Garūta’s Fatherland is such a deeply long flight, something so transcendental, and it will definitely be remembered for a lifetime,” notes Mārtiņš Klišāns.

“The jubilee and the fantastic standing dedicated to Ratchevsky, I think, deserved them, and such a significant moment, because now he will conduct the celestial choir and we will have this special moment with Garuta’s Fatherland with the great choir of the song festival,” says Edgars Vitols.

For more than 30 years, the maestro has been actively focusing on composition. Beautiful scores for choir and solo song projects have been made. “A person who created music, who lived in music and whose life was music. And, I think that everyone who worked with him felt it,” says Mārtiņš Ozoliņš. “Whether you’re singing in his choir or standing on the Grand Stage, you’re watching from the sidelines. It was a man whose appearance was an event.

The man who bore the light and whose favorite saying was “Let there be!”

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