Biruta Ozoliņa
(1959 )
Biruta Ozoliņa is a Latvian musician and pedagogue from Rēzekne. Her name has been inscribed in Latvian ethnic music since the mid-1980s, when, as a talented young woman from the Latgale region studying piano at the Latvian Academy of Music, she became interested in traditional music and sought out the elderly, poorly documented people knowledgeable in local music-making traditions. Participating in these folklore-gathering expeditions introduced Ozoliņa to remarkable female traditional singers, which inspired her and provided much insight. She later produced albums of stories and songs by the traditional singers and storytellers Broņislava Martuževa and Maria Golubova.
Ozoliņa’s own interpretations of folk songs are crystalline and expressive, and her main instruments – kokle and voice – come together in sublime harmony. Her first solo album, Bolta Eimu (1999), features songs performed in precisely this kind of manner, recorded over a longer period of time, from 1987 onward.
Ozoliņa’s second album was recorded with a larger ensemble. In addition to voice and kokle, Sirdsgrieži also features keyboards (played by Ozoliņa herself), bass and percussion. The album was unprecedented in Latvian ethnic music, with a single performer combining an informed and personal interpretation of folk songs with a modern sense of harmony, at the same time also leading the ensemble.
In subsequent years, Ozoliņa merged Latvian folk melodies and modal jazz in Patina, a band that released two albums, the second one with Viktors Ritovs on keyboards. Since then, Ozoliņa has performed a variety of concert programmes focusing on voice and kokle in collaboration with various musicians playing everything from organ to electronics. In each of them her musical style is clearly recognisable. Ozoliņa was also an early member of the legendary band Iļģi and can be heard on its album Bāreņu Dziesmas.
Lauma Bērza, 2022