Latgale’s Annual Rites: Ilona Rupaine and Juris Vaivods in Concert

State Academic Choir “Latvija”
Conductor Māris Sirmais
Students of the MIKC Latgale Secondary School of Music and Art

Composers Ilona Rupaine and Juris Vaivods are contemporaries and this year’s jubilees, but they are connected by more than the year they were born. Both composers are from Latgale; both have sung in choirs and write extensively for choir. Ultimately, both are currently shaping the musical content of two important Latvian cultural institutions: Dailes Theatre and the Latgale Embassy GORS.

The concert programme “Latgolys godskuortys,” created on the initiative of the State Academic Choir “Latvija” and conductor Māris Sirmais, will feature choral music by both composers—arrangements of Latgalian folk songs, complemented by instrumental interludes performed by students of the MIKC Latgale Secondary School of Music and Art.