From April 21 to 25, the “Sound Days” festival dedicated to sound art, music and experiments took place in Liepaja. Concerts, creative workshops and discussions took place throughout the week, bringing together local and foreign artists, students and other interested parties.
At the beginning of the festival, on the evening of April 21, an evening of presentations by student participants was held in the “Pegaza Pagalma” (Pegasus Courtyard). This year, the festival was attended by several dozen international participants – students from 10 foreign universities, representing countries such as Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Germany, Italy and Denmark.
On Wednesday evening, April 22, a discussion took place at RTU Liepaja, unveiling the upcoming program “Atmospheric Waves”, which will take place in 2027 as part of the “Liepaja 2027” European Capital of Culture events, culminating in May 2027 with an exhibition of environmental objects in the urban environment, workshops, sound walks and an international symposium dedicated to wind, climate and listening practices. The program “Atmospheric Waves” will explore wind as a dynamic planetary force and source of energy that shapes the landscape, weather and human experience through sound art and listening. Liepaja, with its distinct seaside climate, will be an ideal place for a dialogue between art, science and society. The discussion focused on the interaction of art and the environment – how important it is for artists to work with the environment, study it and expand their understanding of wind and climate, as well as to look for new ways to convey these experiences to the public. The curator of the program “Atmospheric Waves” and the moderator of the discussion, John Grzinich, emphasized that working with the environment and the practice of listening can be an important tool that helps to deepen our understanding of natural processes and at the same time create a meaningful dialogue with society. “Atmospheric Waves” is implemented within the framework of the program “Liepaja 2027”, using funding allocated by the Ministry of Culture, Liepaja City, South Kurzeme and Kuldīga regions.
The central activity of the “Sound Days” festival is a diverse program of creative workshops led by internationally recognized artists, in which workshop participants made musical instruments and sound sculptures, produced music and improvised with various electronic and acoustic instruments, as well as with the help of programming, as well as explored and listened to the urban environment of Liepaja using various methods. Throughout the week, participants explored, designed, built, soldered, programmed, recorded and produced, using laboratories and classrooms in several buildings of RTU Liepaja, as well as in the prototyping space “FabLab Liepaja”, so that at the end of the week it would be possible to present unique and exciting results, which could be experienced on April 25 from 14:00 at the club “Kursa”, on the beach and elsewhere in the urban environment.
The result of the workshop by Maksims Šenteļevs and Artūrs Punte was the first to be experienced – in the foyer of the club “Kursa” an installation “habitat” was created among the plants and trees, which was rung and moved by the environmental conditions of the time – sunlight, wind strength, plant activity and other information. Then we went to the beach, where participants of the workshop by Kathy Hinde (UK) took visitors on a wind listening walk with various wind instruments. Finally, on the beach itself we were met by Marije Baalman (NL), whose participants demonstrated a special system – kites were released into the wind, and data from the kites’ flight trajectories formed the sound for the participants’ compositions.
Afterwards, the audience were able to listen together to real-time sounds from various locations in Liepaja city, where John Grzinich (US/EE) tested live radio streaming systems together with the participants, as well as the field recording performance of the participants by Florian Tuercke (DE).
The resulting sound recordings can be listened to on the global field recording map Aporee.org.
Then moving to the big stage, where the participants of the music production workshop “From the Heart to the Tombs” by Artis Kuprišs and Reinis Naļivaiko united in a heartfelt performance, whose energy made the visitors and other participants dance, joining in a joint dance both in the hall and on the stage. Visitors had the opportunity to purchase the participants’ self-published CD with the compositions created in nature.
Returning to the lobby of the club “Kursa”, we experienced more performances and demonstrations. Instrument inventor Gijs Gieskes (NL) demonstrated an experimental modular synthesizer made using electromechanical tools – motors, toys and old electrical equipment. In the workshop of Monga Pribadi (ID/LT), exploring urban and personal identity, instruments were made from waste and found materials and at the end the participants agreed on a joint performance. Slightly different from all the other workshops – in the workshop of Jia Liu (DE), participants worked exclusively in a digital environment, learning live programming and an online collaboration system created by the artist, a collaborative laptop performance took place.
A very important event of the festival is the concert program at the club “Kursa” over several days, combining several branches of the program in genre-diverse evenings.
On the evening of April 24, the club hosted a performance evening “Otherwise. Differently.”, created in collaboration with the Lithuanian residency center “Kintai Arts”. The program featured performances by Agita Reķe (LV), Johannes Mong Santoso Pribadi, and Krisa Kuldkepp (EE), participants of the Baltic sound artist residency program “Kintai. Kitaip.” 2025. The program was supplemented by the workshop leader Florians Tuerke with a performance of “Project Longboardharp” – a self-made acoustic string instrument, as well as participants of the “Nx20” program – Diana Lelis and Sabrina (LV), Rugi (LT), Kentasso (LV), and Dafelz (LV).
On Saturday, April 25, the festival’s closing concert took place, featuring guests of the festival, Latvian artists – composer Andris Dzenītis with the electronic music project Woodpecker öö (LV), as well as composer Ernests Valts Circenis (LV) with a performance “from the body”. The festival workshop leader Jia Liu also performed together with artist Michele Samarotto (DE) with a live programming performance, as well as workshop leaders Artis Kuprišs and Reinis Naļivaiko with a meditatitive electromechanical kokle and modular synthesizer improvisation. The program was complemented by “Nx20” members Marta Laumiņa (LV), Ignas (LT), grainn (DE), Zeegamund (LV) and Döni$ (FI). At the very end of the evening, DJ sets were played by “Kintai.Kitaip” program member and workshop leader Mo’ong Pribadi, as well as Ieva G (LV) and Omiros (LV). Part of the performances was the traditional open performance program “Nx20”, in which workshop participants have the opportunity to apply in an open call. In this way, music of a wide variety of genres and performances is represented in the international program – from experimental avant-garde or noise music to hip-hop and art-pop music performances.
“Sound Days” is organized by the association “ASTE. Art, Science, Technology, Education”, the association “E-Lab, electronic art and media center” and the RTU Liepaja Humanities and Art Sciences Center. Sound Days is held thanks to the financial support of the Liepaja City Municipality “Culture Administration” and the State Culture Capital Fund.
