PROJECTS
Saxophone et Piano (duet classique)
Photo: Agnese Kalmane
These two artistic personalities have come together to let their instruments, each with its own extraordinary history, meet and unite in a dialog of colors and genres.
In the program, this duet is richly contrasted with works by Mediņš, Arne, Altmanis, Ibert, Rimski-Korsakov, D'Indy, Tchaikovsky, Demersmann and Astor Piazzolla, who each elevated the popular music of their cultures into their own art music.
Ilze Lejiņa - soprano and alto saxophone
Iveta Cālīte - piano
Viņš un Viņa (electro-jazz-ambiente)
Photo: Amadine Gries
Duo "Viņš un Viņa" (Elle et Lui) - She is a classical musician and comes from Latvia. He is a jazz musician and lives in France. The meeting of two musicians with different cultures and universes.
Together they play since 2006, producing original music combining Latvian folklore and electronics, as well as revisited French chansons.
Viņš – Fred Hormain (guitar, voice, saxophone and electronics)
Viņa – Ilze Lejiņa (saxophone, violin, birbyne, kokle and voice)
Dzērves (latvian folklore group from Luxembourg)
The Luxembourg Latvian folklore group Dzērves met for the first time in March 2007. About 400 Latvians work at the EU institutions in Luxembourg. Among them, there are many Latvian parents whose children were born in Luxembourg or started school there – in a different culture and language. They started weekend meetings to help children discover their national heritage.
The folklore group Grodi helped lay a strong foundation for the Dzērves in June 2007. We learned about summer solstice traditions and some of us experienced the best ever midsummer night that year. It became clear that everybody – parents and children alike – wanted to sing. Since then we have learned much more about traditional culture from Iļģi, Budēļi, Laiva, Kokle, Vilki, the Dance Club and others who generously shared their experience, knowledge, songs and dances with us.
We perform songs from all the regions of Latvia, celebrate traditional festivals and dance Latvian dances. We also play the violin, the traditional Latvian kokle, the accordion, the drums, the zither and the pipe. The most important thing, however, is that we keep the Latvian culture alive abroad so that our roots are not lost.