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The Baltic Sisters - "Soka Saule rītiedama"

The Baltic Sisters is an international traditional music project born in late 2022 at the WOMEX music fair in Lisbon, where three singers from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania came together. Originally united by their passion for the ancient Lithuanian sutartinės polyphonic songs, their repertoire now also includes Estonian and Latvian traditional music. In their concerts, Baltic Sisters present individual Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian folk songs as well as medleys. The members of the group also hold masterclasses in traditional singing. Baltic Sisters consists of Marion Selgall (6hunesseq, Tallina Naesed) from Estonia, Vineta Romāne (Saucējas, Laiksne) from Latvia and Laurita Peleniūtė (Māros rijos, Elektroninės Sutartinės, UDU, Marga muzika) from Lithuania.

A fourth Baltic sister, the Latvian singer and kokle player Liene Skrebinska, also occasionally participates in the group’s concerts and recordings. This song is such an occasion. “Soka Sauļe rītiedama” (The sun says as it sets) is an orphan’s song from the repertoire of the brilliant Latgalian traditional singer Domicella Līpeņa. She lived a very difficult life and all her songs were bittersweet, but this one is especially sad and heartfelt, a feeling that Baltic Sisters have tried to mirror in their arrangement. The song was recorded in 1991 by ethnomusicologist Mārtiņš Boiko and musicologist Gita Lancere.