JAZZ MUSIC AT CHRISTMAS

At this year’s Christmas, the Orchestra RIGA have decided to please the audience with a jazz music concert. The festive mood will be created by the big band of the Orchestra RIGA led by jazz musician Roberts Martini and a brilliant duet of vocalists – Paula Saija and Daumants Kalniņš.

A large part of the concert will be devoted to Latvian music. The brilliant sound of the orchestra’s big band instruments will be enriched by the singers, whose creative everyday life also plays a major role in jazz music. The cooperation of the Orchestra RIGA with Daumants Kalniņš has been dated for more than ten years, but for the first time the singer Paula Saija has been invited to musical cooperation. In the solo and duet performances of these vocalists, we will hear original compositions by Latvian pianist and composer Madars Kalniņš, as well as arrangements of popular Latvian songs in a jazz mood. Jazz musician and saxophonist of the Orchestra RIGA Roberts Martini will be at the big band conductor’s desk.

In 1960, the legendary jazz composer Duke Ellington created his jazz suite as an interpretation of the musical themes of Peter Tchaikovsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker”, released on the album “The Nutcracker Suite”. In this suite, you will hear such well-known melodies as “March”, “Waltz of Flowers” and others, which this time will be heard in non-traditional jazz intonations performed by the Orchestra RIGA big band in the first part of the concert.

The Orchestra RIGA Christmas concerts will take place on December 17 at the VEF Culture Palace and on December 20 at the “Splendid Palace” cinema.