Riga Historical

Music and Dance Festival

Explore Riga & its musical treasures

31st July – 30th August, 2023 | RĪGA Latvia

The Riga Historical Music and Dance Festival (Rīgas Vēsturiskās mūzikas un dejas festivāls – RVMDF) is a beautiful element of the cultural scene in Riga, Latvia and the entire Baltic region that is becoming more and more ambitious with each new edition. Every year, it delights more than 5000 listeners and masterclass participants in various significant historical concert venues throughout the city with performances by some of the most lauded chamber music ensembles, vivid productions of historical operas, refined court music and dances, and riches from our own legacy of 16th- to 18th-century music composed within the borders of present-day Latvia.

The Riga Historical Music and Dance Festival is like a home to which both audiences and musicians gladly return to regain inner harmony, stock up on energy and at least for a moment step back into the highly cultured and decorous court life of the Baroque era. But what is perhaps most important and surprising is the realisation of how much there is still to discover, so many seemingly familiar things that we can look at with fresh eyes and from a historically-informed viewpoint. All of the festival concerts are performed on period instruments or replicas thereof, and the singers have mastered Baroque vocal technique and ornamentation, thus extinguishing any myths of early music as old-fashioned. Quite the contrary, thanks to the Riga Historical Music and Dance Festival, Riga and Latvia have become one of the most important centres of early music in Europe.

To date, the festival has hosted interpreters of early music from more then ten different countries around the world, including recorder virtuoso Erik Bosgraaf; bassoonist Alberto Grazzi; historical keyboard specialists Gertruda Jerjomenko, Liene Madern-Stradiņa, Ernests Neimanis, Minyoung Kim, Varvara Manukyan and David Shemer; theorbist Mauro Pinciaroli; sopranos Heather Newhouse, Elīna Šimkus and Ilze Grēvele-Skaraine; countertenor Sergejs Jēgers; harpsichordists Vilimas Norkūnas, Alina Rotaru and Imbi Tarum; traverso flute virtuoso Maija Kļaviņa; the Stadt-Hautboisten Riga historical woodwind ensemble; the early music ensembles TutzFrequenz, Beggar’s Ensemble, Neymann Ensemble and BarrocoTout; the Baroque orchestra Collegium Musicum Riga; the Baroque choir Collegium Choro Musici Riga; conductor Franck-Emmanuel Comte and many more. Artistic director of the festival – conductor Māris Kupčs.

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Address

Vaļņu iela 9-3, Rīga, LV-1050, LATVIA

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