This time was very exciting for the composer, singer and actress Zane Dombrovska – she obtained a master’s degree in audiovisual composition at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theater and got her estate where she plans to build a new cultural space – an ambisonic concert hall. On the other hand, about her relationship with singing, Zane says: “I don’t work as a singer at all, but I haven’t completely retired from singing, because I have some interesting projects coming up this summer and this fall.”
Enrolled in another university by chance
Asked what made him decide in favor of choosing to study audiovisual composition, Zane says: “Several years ago, I realized that I wanted to try something other than working in the theater and that my relationship with music was not completely settled. I had already created the musical design for several performances in the theater, but the musical score is not only music; it’s the noises, it’s the environment, some other understanding. When I thought about studies, for a while I didn’t really understand what I wanted to learn and where to learn this type of composition, because our Music Academy is quite academic. I started to renew my knowledge of solfeggio, consulted at the Latvian Academy of Music about opportunities to study composition. I was very lucky, because professor Andris Vecumnieks, to whom I showed my works, knew what I had already done in the theater. And it was he who advised me to be interested in the possibility of studying in Estonia.” When Zane had already entered the academy and went to thank the professor for the valuable recommendation, he was very surprised when he found out where Zane was studying: “It turns out that Vecumnieks had in mind the university in Tallinn where you can learn music writing for films. Probably because that time when I talked to the professor, I told him that my dream would be to write music for a film. I had already written for the theater, and I wanted to work differently with the world of sound.»
When Zane entered university, she was offered to study either electroacoustic or audiovisual composition. “I wasn’t really familiar with this word, so I thought: if it’s something visual, that’s what the film school would have offered me: I’ll be shown the screen, and I’ll write music. When I had to make a video work in the entrance exam, I was very surprised and confused, but I thought – hey, how they test different creative styles!” When the lessons started, the first assignments were also related to visuality, which Zane thought about – wow, how they develop our understanding, how valuable it is! “It took about half a year until I really understood what it was, what I was studying, and what kind of school it was… Frankly speaking, if I had known before that, I wouldn’t have even considered the possibility of studying something like that,” Zane laughs. “Since everything happened very naturally and logically and I was admitted to this university, I continued to study. Of course, the lectures were held in English, so during this time I also improved my knowledge of the English language. While studying, I also discovered that I am very happy, because I learned things in school that I did not know, and not what I had probably already learned in practice. So studying allowed me to understand what I was doing. It was very blessed, exciting and interesting! Since only I and one other person studied in my course, my husband and I laughed at home that it was like a private school with a very nice atmosphere and great company.»
A place for yourself and music
Another big and exciting project that Zane is currently working on is the creation of a new cultural space and an ambisonic concert hall. Ambisonic or 360-degree sound is a new listening experience and a space that cannot be experienced so easily at home, so this project will eventually take place in the Ropaži manor – owned by me and my husband Gunt, where there are free rooms suitable for this purpose, and Gunt also likes it very much music. Therefore, we decided that it is a suitable place for an ambisonic sound track, where composers, players and musicians could train, cherish the idea of ambisonic sound as a whole world, test their creative ideas. The audience could also come and enjoy a fresh and interesting listening experience from time to time.»
The story of how Zane and Guntis got to their manor is fascinating: “A few months after we got married, we had the feeling that we needed our own house and piece of land, because it is probably in the nature of Latvians to need their own place. I only looked at advertisements on the Internet about the possibility of buying a plot of land without construction, without any thoughts about a manor house. Since Guntis is engaged in real estate development, he asked me: “Zane, do you realize that if you buy bare land, you will have to start from scratch?” I jokingly answered: if we can’t buy land, where there is nothing, then we will buy a manor… And then we found our manor in the advertisement – half-ruined, abandoned, overgrown with trees. When we went to take a look, it seems that something sounded, and everything happened so that we got to the manor house. Little by little, we have cleaned everything with our own hands, electricity has been brought in, we are starting to restore the buildings, because we do not want to leave this place to the ravages of time, but to protect it. In time, it will be a place not only for us to live or to play music for foxes and deer, but also to invite people to visit from time to time to implement ambisonic music experiments.»
So far, Zane has not been able to find out if there are any legends associated with her new manor, but it is known that its historical name is Bacchus Manor. “Of course, we have searched for information, but so far we have not found anything more than one photograph from the fifties. However, one can guess that the architecture of the manor is very similar to the architecture of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ropaži and that it could have been built around 1901.” Zane laughs that the historical name of the manor has resonated with Johann Sebastian Bach, so “we plan to do everything so that our manor is again recorded with this name on maps and plans”.
Enjoys being together and singing
Zane says about his relationship with singing: «I don’t work as a singer, but I sing. In addition, I am currently very passionate about creating and composing music. For a while, I had a great opportunity to collaborate with the LTV program «Bardaks bēniņš», and currently I also have some interesting projects. And yes, I still love to sing, which I do with my friends in music. That’s why I have agreed to go on the summer tour “One place on the deer is still free” together with my National Theater colleagues, who are still very dear to me from the time when I was still actively playing in plays. Every time we make music together, I enjoy so much the way we have sung together over the years. That we speak the same language – both stage and music. We have a similar understanding of what it means to work on stage, the excitement of what it means to create together.”
Zane is equally pleased with the musical meeting with the composer Raimonds Macat: “We have become friends, and I am happy that now with his permission I can sing more than one song – besides “North Wind” something else has been created. On the other hand, he likes to play my songs with great response, because it is very important for me to play my own music, because that’s how I started my musical career, during which three albums were recorded.»
The trio “Saldais”, which is joined by Zane, Dita Lūriņa and Lelde Dreimane, is still relevant, but Zane adds: “There are generally four of us, because a good dessert needs an extra portion, so sometimes Erika Eglija-Gravele joins us. We’ve had a great time together, singing covers of popular songs that I’ve created, but it was like sweet balm for my soul when the girls said: «Zane, we can sing one of your songs at concerts too!» Now we also sing my song «Tam ir svars» and another composition at concerts. Also with these girls I enjoy the great time together and the similar feeling about music and making music. On the other hand, a fun program of children’s songs unites me with the actor and director Gundars Silakaktins.»
