Riga Early Music Centre

The Riga Early Music Centre in Latvia is leading organizer of early music activities in the Baltic States. Teaching, diffusion and promotion of early music are their priorities!

Riga Early Music Centre

Over the past 30 years, under the guidance of the conductor Māris Kupčs, who is researcher of early music, head of the Early Music Department of the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music and director of the Riga Early Music Centre (REMC), early music activities have become an integral part of Latvian culture. The organisation brings together professional musicians who are interested in performing early music based on historical traditions and using period instruments or their copies, with the main aim of developing and popularizing this trend as well as exploring Baltic culture and music heritage.

 

In 2010, conductor Māris Kupčs founded the baroque choir Collegium Choro Musici Riga, and in 2005 – baroque orchestra Collegium Musicum Riga. Its name comes from the orchestra, which was performing in Riga in the 17th century. REMC is umbrella also for many other local artists and early music ensembles. Together they represent baroque opera company that creates opera productions in historical staging. One of the last opera productions – “Stories of Clorinda, Jephte and Ismène” received splendid critiques from St. Petersburg Chamber Opera in Russia where it was performed in October 2019.

 

Throughout the year local and abroad audiences are welcome in more than 50 concerts and events organised by REMC and supporting partners as well as three early music festivals in Latvia during the summer – Early Music Festival “Vivat Curlandia!” (Bauska), that is dedicated to the medieval, renaissance and early baroque music, Riga Historical Music and Dance Festival and since 2019 – festival “Music of the Centuries” (“Gadsimtu mūzika” in Daugavpils).

 

Early music performers are enthusiastic about giving to Latvian and abroad listeners the opportunity to enjoy music that, thanks to period instruments and musicians who are early music researchers, has a completely different value – music becomes “pure” from unfounded stereotypes and misinterpretations, music acquires the splendour and subtlety of a particular historical period.

 

What Riga does specifically within EEEMERGING+

The Riga Early Music Centre provides to the young early music ensembles unique experience of living, rehearsing and performing in a Latvian cultural heritage – Bauska Castle. During the residency period ensembles are welcome to develop arts of rhetoric in their performance, meet early music students of Latvian Music Academy, perform concerts in different sides of Latvia and many others. The Riga Early Music Centre’s special and always fun training – workshop about historical costumes from 17th or 18th century.

 

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