EVERY YEAR IN JULY... FOR 23 YEARS!
Rīgas Ritmi Festival is one of the leading improvisation, jazz and global music festivals in the Baltics, widely known in Europe and the world as well. Every year in Riga, the stages of the festival brings together world-renowned and awarded artists, as well as new and unheard musical talents.
This year, the festival will be held for the 23rd time, offering the guests of Riga a wide program - a refined selection for music connoisseurs. This year, the representative of the new golden generation of Cuban jazz, singer and violinist Yilian Cañizares with the Resilience Trio, the charismatic French blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player Charles Pasi, the Danish flamenco virtuoso Jacob Gurevitsch and other foreign and domestic artists will perform at the festival, but the central event will be the premiere of Maestro Raimonds Paul's symphonic jazz program Songs without words together with the chamber orchestra Sinfonietta Rīga.
In two decades, the Rīgas Ritmi Festival has become an integral part of Latvian cultural life, writing Riga's name in global and jazz music cultural tourism guides. More than 200 thousand visitors have enjoyed the performance of 650 musicians in more than 1000 concerts. Thanks to the festival, such music giants as Bobby McFerrin, Pat Metheny, Diane Reeves, Take 6, Lizz Wright, Richard Bona, BBC Big Band, Avishai Cohen, Patti Austin, Scott Hamilton, Freddy Cole, The Yellowjackets, Victor Wooten, Buika, Astillero, Jojo Mayer, Medeski Martin & Wood, Robert Glasper, Diane Schuur, Billy Cobham, Randy Brecker, Ayom and many more have visited Riga.
The artistic director of the Rīgas Ritmi Festival is Māris Briežkalns.
EDUCATIONAL EVENTS
One of the main goals of the festival is to educate both listeners and young musicians. That is why the festival also offers jam sessions and workshops, where world-famous musicians share their knowledge with young talents, inspiring and changing the lives of young musicians. Young people, music educators and journalists from all over the world participate in the workshops every year.
RĪGAS RITMI SHOWCASE
The showcase of the Rīgas Ritmi Festival is a project whose goal is to present Latvia's best jazz, improvisation and global music performers to foreign producers, journalists and festival organizers. This project promotes the export of Latvian music industry abroad.
"First of all, what Māris Briežkalns and his team are doing is absolutely in line with the main trends characteristic of the leading music countries and their festivals, because you only have to go and see what is happening in the USA, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, to understand that what offered by our festival are absolutely adequate. Secondly, the organizers of the festival have a colossal intuition and a lot of experience, which allows them to invite those young musicians who are rising stars endowed with phenomenal talent to perform in Riga. This is a very important feature of the Rīgas Ritmi Festival." - Professor of the Latvian Academy of Music and music critic Boriss Avramecs.
"When things are done with passion, it cannot be overlooked, and this is exactly what happens at the Rīgas Ritmi Festival. You can feel this atmosphere from the stage to the streets." - Spanish saxophonist and singer Antonio Lizana.
