“I have realized that the greatest joy in life is when I can help someone and see that it has worked and bears fruit. When I hear my students’ performance at a good level, I am much happier than when I perform myself. Because with my performance, they will be happy it’s very rare to achieve that feeling,” emphasizes jazz singer and teacher INGA BÄRZIņA, who celebrated a beautiful life anniversary this week, in an interview with Gita Lancerei.
Inga has just returned from the United States, where she led master classes together with her colleague Arti Oruba at the sister university of the Latvian Academy of Music – Omaha University of Nebraska, participated in the work of the youth jazz festival jury, led master classes for young big bands and also gave four concerts.
“There were various interesting situations. We talked a lot with the students, the conversations were very interesting and I now have a lot to think about. The students of the youngest group also asked where Latvia is, who our neighbors are and also why we play jazz, what is American music. Yes, it’s so interesting, because jazz is actually not just American music for a long time.”
Inga learned positivity and lightness in America: “You have to get used to the fact that in America you are praised more often than in Latvia…”
Before America, Inga’s paths also led to Germany, where the long-planned concert finally took place, and Italy, where she also worked with students in the Erasmus exchange program.
When we met in Latvia, students of Ingas Bēržinas NMV Riga Dome Choir School and Jāzeps Vītolas Academy of Music of Latvia, while waiting for their teacher at home, worked on the assigned tasks independently. “In jazz music, they have to leave their comfort zone all the time, and it’s quite difficult for each other mentally,” the jazz teacher thinks. “But I am happy for my students! And especially for the students of the Dome Choir School, because they have understood at an early age where they are getting involved. It is rare that young people who enter this department do not have their own vision of what it is will be.
I’m the kind of vocal teacher who makes it very important to raise these singers to be musicians. Not about singers who put on a beautiful dress, go on stage and feel like the main ones there.
I want them to realize that there is no discount for them, that they have to be on the same level as instrumentalists, with just as free thinking, with just as good opportunities to participate in the process of making music. And it’s not easy, you have to learn a lot and intensively.”
Inga also does not hide: “I have realized that the greatest joy in life is when I can help and see that it has worked and bears fruit: when I hear my students’ performance at a good level, I am much happier than when I perform myself. Because with it is very rare to achieve that feeling of happiness at your performance!
I really like to play music, and I really want to do it, but I have never hidden that the role of a counselor is more important to me in life. But, of course, I try to balance the work of a teacher and the stage, because I am aware that it is important for students to see that I am not only a speaker, but also do something myself.”
If in classical music singers talk about how their voices change over the years, how is it in jazz – what happens to a jazz singer’s voice over time? “Any person’s voice changes. Of course, I also notice changes in mine. But I can say that I have a wonderful genre of music – jazz: I can always choose what pitch to sing, what and how to sing. I have such freedom, which I really appreciate . No one can ask me: why do you sing like that? Because in jazz it’s the norm – to sing the way you feel at that moment,” says Inga and reveals: “I’ve been interested in the specifics of the voice and the aging of the voice, which is related to our hormonal system and the body’s I, for example, feel that my voice is getting lower: I’m happy and enjoying it, because now I can freely sing things that I couldn’t before. Of course, there are also challenges – what I used to sing with one technique, now I have to sing differently.”
So a jazz singer doesn’t really have a problem – you can sing what you want and can? “Yes, that’s the best of it all,” smiles Inga. “Even if you feel unwell at a concert, you can always figure out how to turn this situation to your advantage: change the tonality, improvise something, or change it so that the listener doesn’t have to suffer from the fact that you don’t feel well.”
“Klasika” wishes Inga Bērziņa many wonderful creative moments in her and her students’ concerts, as well as finding time to find strength and inspiration in her place of peace and happiness – Smiltene!
Inga Bērzina’s next concert in Latvia is expected on the International Jazz Day on April 30, which we will also inform about in the “Classics” program.
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