Armands Strazds

"Every problem has two solutions: the simple way or the complicated way. The first way requires a certain investment of time and creative thought while the second way is simply a waste of time."

Armands Strazds

Armands Strazds was born on March 10th, 1970 in Riga. He studied music theory at the Dārziņš College of Music (1986–1989) and composition at the Vītols Latvian Academy of Music with Ģederts Ramans (1989–1992). At the Lübeck Music Academy he studied composition with Friedhelm Doehl (1989–1992) and electronic music with Dirk Reith. He also undertook further studies in algorithmic compositional systems (digital winds, Hymnica etc.). Together with Modris Tenisons he was a co-author of the project Zīme (The Sign) at the Latvian pavilion of the EXPO 2000 in Hannover.

He has worked in Germany as an organist, conductor, computer program designer and programmer, and has worked in the Bremen multimedia centre. He was the assistant to the attaché at the Latvian embassy in Germany. He worked as a consultant for the Phare project in the Latvian State Employment Agency. As of 2004, he teaches algorithmic composition at the Riga Technical University. In 2005, he came the director of the national support office of the e-Twinning e-teaching program, which was initiated by the European Commission Education and Culture general directorate and the Latvian Education and Science Ministry.

Currently he represents the Latvian European Network and Electronic Media (NEM) technology platform group.

Guntars Pupa, supplemented by Mārīte Dombrovska © LMIC