Signe Lagzdiņa: The time of distance has been quite creative and active for you. You are not sitting, your arms are on your lap – starting from that you have challenged many musicians on social networks, and finally the fact that you have given concerts with Daina Teni to a very small number of listeners. How did you feel about the quarantine challenge that so many have thanked you on social networks?
Walter Owl: As usual, the best things happen by accident. It just felt like it had to be done. We were in Košrags, in a country house, with my family – it was the very beginning of an emergency, and we realized that we would have to live at home for a while. We talked about the Italians – how they are doing, how hard it is for them, but at the same time they keep the positive spirit when playing music on the balconies.
We thought – how could Latvians, being single farmers, do that? I quickly grabbed the cello and played Baha. It was filmed.
Then my girlfriend and I thought, what if we shared it and showed us how? Because we were also interested in how others go. So it all happened out of senses. To be honest, I didn’t expect such a huge response – we have to think about which of the musicians did not participate there, because there were almost everyone, from academic musicians to Renārs Kaupers. The beginning of the pandemic was already interesting, disturbing and even positive – as far as we have read about such things in books and watched movies, the last pandemic in the world – the Spanish flu – was a hundred years ago.
I started writing music – I wrote a whole lot of songs, because I felt that I had to catch that feeling and keep it in the music.
There are quite a few that I haven’t shown to anyone yet, but they are compositions of that time.
But the next stage was very sad, because I realized that there would not be a concert so soon. The news was scary.
What I read about astronauts pulled me out of my relatively depressed state – how they deal with being turned on in a small room. It is even more difficult for them because they spend about a year there. The main thing is discipline and creative approach – to divide your day into several directions: to do something, to do sports and to sleep. You have to get up early – as if it were a normal everyday life, even more so. It saved me – I realized that I had to create new things, new combinations. Because Dagamba’s concerts had stopped for a while, and it was very difficult for me, as a person who had performed all my life, to stop doing it. And new things happened.
It was a way out of the unpleasant feeling of what to do next, because I don’t want to plant potatoes, although I will do it if I have to. But somehow it seemed that I could somehow continue to work with music.
And it turns out that you really can. And in the end, I have more concerts this summer than last year – thanks to the duo! At the end of May, we realized that this summer this will be the current format – small concerts, and it was. We have traveled to such beautiful places in Latvia – I didn’t even know that there were any. And now there is the festival.
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The name of your duo program is “Without electricity” …
It is a return to classical music in its pure form and academic sound. This is what I wanted long ago, but there was no time.
At the beginning of the pandemic period, I returned to Bach, I played gamma very diligently, it can be said that I returned to the roots in the cello game.
At one point, Daina and I realized that we had to play. Because there was no time until then – we could not jump from the “Dagamba” train, there were concerts all the time. The name “Without electricity” explains their feeling and direction. There is not only classical academic music – there is also something from film music, we play Ludoviko Einaudi, a bit from Valta Pūce, also self-composed compositions. If possible, we play completely acoustically. Initially, we played for 25 people – the very first concerts were three in one evening …
At the first concert I thought – where have I gone, why do I have to do it ?! Feeling outside the comfort zone, like a cold shower. But in the third concert I already caught “kaifu” and realized – yes, so I do it …
(..) It is a great pleasure to have such a duo. Let’s continue working – it will be a child of the pandemic, who will live further, in parallel with “Dagamba”.
Where else can you meet?
For example, at the end of August we will be in Riga, in the cultural bar “Balodis”. But the joy that “Dagamba” is back – on August 20 in Jelgava we will perform together with “Sinfonietta Rīga”, the concert is already sold out. But at the beginning of September we will be in Dzintari Concert Hall – we will play in the closing concert of the season, which has not been announced yet.
Now there is a brand new festival that will take place in Lake Jugla. Exciting, romantic and interesting. When I first read the title of the concert, I thought – why should the English word “live” be written in Latvian ?! Because we are used to everything that happens to us “live” … A word game with the most popular word of the pandemic time. Tell us how and why the festival came about!
“Crossover” or inter-genre music is what “Dagamba” plays, “Folk Girls” sings and in a way Laima Jansone does. The only difference is that “Dagamba” creates a mix of genres and styles with academic music, but “Tautumeitas” – with folk music. There are a lot of groups working in this genre. For a long time we had a dream to create a festival where such groups would perform, because such festivals take place in the world – only in this region there is no. The closest is in St. Petersburg, “Terem Crossover” festival, which we have visited many times – the musicians of “Terem” quartet are very good friends for us. But there was never time. Somehow, thanks again for the pandemic, because free time came and we were finally able to make it.
Why this format? Yes, well, again – thanks to the pandemic, because most likely we would have a regular concert, a normal festival, most likely it would be outside, but people would stand on their feet – as usual. But boats give us the opportunity to distance ourselves.
Therefore, we took a risk and announced this festival shortly after Midsummer, when only fifty people were allowed to gather outside …. For safety reasons, we invented boats, but we didn’t want to lose the power of the big concert and also the visual enjoyment, light show, arena level stage. (..) What will be seen there is usually meant for ten thousand people, but in this case they will be about two thousand. Also a large enough number this summer. It will be like a proper festival, only in the water. (..) We try to anticipate all kinds of problems that may happen, but we hope that everything will be fine, so we invite people to come in time.
The entrance is from five in the evening. The weather will be fantastic!
The first artist – Laima Jansone – will be seven, “Tautumeitas” – seven forty-five, and “Dagamba” – nine. The whole event will end at about eleven. There will be more surprises in the middle, about which I will not say anything, it has to come and look.
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Or are you an avid boater?
I am not. We have been fishing in Lake Kāla with my parents for a long time, but it is so long ago – I was five years old …
By the way, why the Open-Air Museum?
It is also in some ways a “crossover”, only in the environment – they are like countryside in the city. And what’s great – you can go to the Open-Air Museum by bike, there is a bicycle path. From VEF to there – fifteen minutes. We also encourage people to ride bicycles or public transport so as not to pollute the place, which is fantastic. And – yes, all this will also be online “LMT Straume”. So the word “boat” really has three meanings in this case – a live concert, an online or “online” concert, and the fact that we watch it all from a boat. At the moment, the rented boats are over, but everyone can still find them themselves. We just didn’t anticipate that much interest …
In the meantime, you’ve also recorded a soundtrack for a movie – what is it about a movie
Yes, this is another pandemic child –
I have written music for a feature film for the first time, and more especially that I wrote it for orchestra – I never did, because so far I had mainly written music only for the band “Dagamba”.
It was a big test in terms of sheet music – everything had to be written perfectly and accurately, because there were no rehearsals, the orchestra came and immediately started writing … But now – thank God that Normunds Šnē was in our company. We met several times and created those notes beautifully. The film itself is made by my mother Dace Pūce, its temporary name is “Bedre”. In Latvia, it will be possible to watch it in the spring, but in the autumn it will be shown at festivals. The deadlines were ironic, they had to fall within a month, which is a very limited time due to the music of the feature film. The main character is a twelve-year-old boy, but the film is not for children – there are three stories intertwined. The final word in film music belongs to the director … I am the one who paints the film emotionally.
Who is currently standing on Dagamba’s music consoles?
A whole new album has been made, but it is still in the demo stage, we will work on it in the autumn.
But on Saturday we will play the best we have. Also what suits the lake – Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake”.
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