Youth Choir "Kamēr..." (Riga, Latvia)
A youthful passion combined with highly refined vocal skills and sensuous musicality — these are the qualities that best define the youth choir Kamēr..., founded in 1990 by conductor Māris Sirmais (1969), who still leads the choir today. Jānis Liepiņš (1988) has served as the choir’s second conductor since 2006, and Aina Bajāre and Ansis Sauka have worked as the choir’s vocal coaches for many years.
Since foundation, the choir has won dozens of diplomas, cups, and trophies in various choral competitions, and each award has brought the choir one step higher and closer to the musical ideals that they are striving to reach. These include a prize at the Marktoberdorf chamber choir competition in Germany in 1999, the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing in Gorizia, Italy, in 2004, as well as three championship prizes and gold medals at the World Choir Olympics in Xianmen, China, in 2006. In addition, Kamēr... has twice received the highest honour in Latvian music — the Latvian Great Music Award, in 2000 and 2005. The choir has also won the choir battles, or national choir competition, at the Latvian Song and Dance Festival a total of three times, in 1998, 2003, and 2008.
In recent years Kamēr... has worked with programs specially commissioned for the choir. In this way, the choir has developed a unique repertoire as well as enhanced the world’s body of a capella choral music with new works by remarkable composers. The choir’s biggest project to date is World Sun Songs (2008), which featured seventeen new choral works by world-renowned composers. The songs were premiered in Riga in July 2008, and were later performed at the World Symposium on Choral Music in Copenhagen. A natural step forward was the project Moon Songs in February 2012, for which 10 new pieces by Latvian composers were written, following the first part of the concert – a staging of Orff’s The Moon, where the singers lived the parts of peasants, villagers and even the dead.
The roots of genre and expression synthesis are to be found in choir’s 20 year anniversary concert, where several works specially commissioned for this event were performed: Līga Celma’s oratorio Jersikas derība (The Jersika Testament), based on Elita Cīmare’s book of the same name, and the concert program Mīlas madrigāli (The Madrigals of Love), which featured new pieces by eight contemporary Latvian composers. Both programs were performed on April 3, 2010 in Latvian National Opera. In late 2010, Kamēr… premiered its staging of Ziemassvētku leģenda (The Christmas Legend) by composer Ēriks Ešenvalds and poet Kārlis Vērdiņš, where the choir again proved they are able to do challenging choreography and singing simultaneously.
In various projects Kamēr... has collaborated with Latvian composers: Pēteris Vasks, Ēriks Ešenvalds, Raimonds Pauls, Arturs Maskats, Valts Pūce, Rihards Dubra, Juris Vaivods, Zigmars Liepiņš, Līga Celma, Juris Karlsons, Kaspars Zemītis, Evija Skuķe, Raimonds Tiguls, Rihards Zaļupe and Andris Sējāns.
The choir has also worked with several world-renowned international composers, who wrote music for the project World Sun Songs – Sir John Tavener, Giya Kancheli, Sven David Sandström, Leonid Desyatnikov, John Luther Adams, Stephen Leek, DobrinkaTabakova, HendrikHofmeyr, PolinaMedyulyanova, Alberto Grau, Ko Matsushita, Thierry Pécou, Vytautas Miškinis, Urmas Sisask, and Bjørn Andor Drage.
Kamēr... has performed together with numerous remarkable musicians, including Gidon Kremer, Marta Sudraba, the orchestra Kremerata Baltica, Nicolas Altstaedt, Peter Schreier, Yuri Bashmet, Julius Berger, Maxim Rysanov, and many others. The choir also regularly performs at European music festivals such as Gidon Kremer’s Kammermusikfest Lockenhaus in Austria; the Bodensee Festival in Germany; Julius Berger’s EckelshausenerMusiktage in Germany, and Asiago-Festival in Italy; Boswiler Sommer in Switzerland; the Stimmen Festival in Germany; and the Kronberg Festival, also in Germany. The choir has performed and toured in countries all over the world — Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Netherlands, Finland, Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, Turkey, China, the United States, and Ireland.
Several albums have been published, including such records of conceptual programmes as World Sun Songs, The Madrigals of Love and the upcoming album Moon Songs. Recordings of diverse genres and periods of music have been also made either by the choir solo, or in collaboration with many performers, totalling to almost twenty albums. The most recent of them is O Salutaris with music by Ēriks Ešenvalds, that was announced the best album of academic music in Latvia in 2011.
Over the last twenty years, Kamēr… has achieved its special sound by cultivating its own signature performance style and modes of expression. Both the full emotional surrender, a characteristic of amateur singers, as well as the strictest criteria for the vocal quality of a performance, are of equal importance for the choir. This is also exemplified by the ellipsis encoded in the choir’s name, Kamēr..., which means “while” in English. While we are still young, anything is possible…
Choir site(in english and latvian): www.kamer.lv
Artistic director and main conductor
Maris Sirmais
Māris Sirmais was born in 1969. He graduated from Emīls Dārziņš Music College in Riga, then earned the master’s degree in choral conducting from the Latvian Music Academy. In 2000, Sirmais studied orchestral conducting at the Graz Music Institute (Austria) with Professor Martin Sieghart.
In 1990, Sirmais founded the youth choir Kamēr..., and from 1992 till 1997, he worked with the Latvia Philharmonic women’s choir Dzintars, Both groups have won numerous international competitions. Since 1997, Sirmais has been working as the artistic director and chief conductor of Latvija, the Latvian State Academic Choir. He has worked with such world-famous conductors as Mariss Jansons, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Tönu Kaljuste and Arturo Tamayo, and has performed together with Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Riga Chamber Players, Liepaja Symphony Orchestra, Ulm Chamber Orchestra (Sweden), and KREMERata Baltica.
Sirmais is one of the principal conductors of the All‑Latvian Song Festival, as well as the Latvian Youth Song Festival. He also serves as artistic director of the highly-acclaimed International Sacred music festival organized by State Academic Choir Latvija. Sirmais has been recognized in many international conducting and choral competitions, and he is also a frequent member of international choir and conductors competitions' juries. He has worked as a teacher of conducting in Riga Dome choir school, and a lector at other institutions. Sirmais holds the highest Latvian State award, the Order of the Three Stars, and he is an honorary member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences
Assistant conductor
Jānis Liepiņš
Since 2006 Jānis Liepiņš (1988) has been the assistant conductor of the choir Kamēr... . Jānis is now studying in Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music and has already successfully graduated from Riga Dome Choir School’s Department of Choral Conducting. Besides his responsibilities as conductor, he also sings with Kamēr... as a tenor. Jānis Liepiņš was the first place winner of the Teodors Reiters International Competition for Choir Conductors in 2007. He was also awarded the prize for “Achievements in international competitions and local choral competitions 2007” by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia. Jānis has conducted Kamēr... on choir’s tours abroad – the Julius Berger festival Eckelshausen Music Days, concerts in Turkey (Istanbul and Ankara) in honour of the 89th anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic of Latvia, as well as the 40th Choral Contest in Tolosa in October 2008.
Jānis Liepiņš is also one of the founders of the Latvian Association of Choir Conductors, which was established in 2008.