“Kamer… is one of the leading youth choirs of the world whose commitment to excellence and innovation is staggering. If you get a chance to hear Kamer… performing anywhere in the world, don’t miss the opportunity of a lifetime to be uplifted, moved, dazzled and inspired by the very best in choral singing!”

 

Composer, conductor Stephen Leek www.stephenleek.com

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 pedagogues for many years.

Over the years, the choir has received several important awards at competitions all over the world.  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.  Since its founding, the choir has won dozens of diplomas, cups, and trophies in various choral competitions.  Each award has brought the choir one step higher and closer to the musical ideals that they are striving to reach.

Kamēr... has twice received the highest honor 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 built up a unique repertoire of music, as well as enhanced the world’s existing body of a capella choral music with new works by remarkable composers.  The choir’s biggest project to date was World Sun Songs, which featured seventeen new choral works by a number of 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.  Other important works include two works specially commissioned for the choir’s twentieth anniversary: 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 (Love Madrigals), which featured new pieces by eight contemporary Latvian composers.  Both programs premiered on April 3, 2010, at the choir’s anniversary concert in the Latvian National Opera.

In late 2010, Kamēr… premiered its production of Ziemassvētku leģenda (A Christmas Legend), by composer Ēriks Ešenvalds and poet Kārlis Vērdiņš.  In this special holiday show, the choir had the chance to further develop its synthesis of music and dance.

For many years Kamēr... has collaborated with the leading Latvian composers: Pēteris Vasks, Ēriks Ešenvalds, Raimonds Pauls, Arturs Maskats, Valts Pūce, Rihards Dubra, Juris Vaivods, and Zigmars Liepiņš.

The choir has also worked with several world-renowned international composers, who wrote music for the choir’s 2008 project World Sun Songs–Sir John Tavener, Giya Kancheli, Sven‑David Sandström, Leonid Desyatnikov, John Luther Adams, Stephen Leek, Dobrinka Tabakova, Hendrik Hofmeyr, Polina Medyulyanova, 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 Eckelshausener Musiktage 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.

 

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 exemplifed by the ellipsis encoded in the choir’s name, Kamēr, which means “while” in English.  While we are still young, anything is possible…