The Latvian national recording company SKANi releases a new album “Reinis Zariņš. Undulations. 21st century Latvian piano music”. This vast collection is an anthology chosen by the prominent Latvian pianist Zariņš – it is his own portrait of recent Latvian piano music, including nine compositions in the first CD and eight in the second. The album (double CD, streaming and download format) will be available on October 16, 2026.
“I have always felt it important to remember that music is created and performed by “ordinary people”, who experience the same joys and sorrows as all of us. That is why I have included these modest little stories here: music comes far more vividly to life when it is awakened by living people who know one another,''
states Reinis Zariņš.
The album on Spotify: ej.uz/undulations-spotify
More about the album: http://lmic.lv/
Equally at home in classical and contemporary repertoire, Latvian pianist Reinis Zariņš’ (1985) passion lies in the crafting of conceptual programmes that encourage honest consideration of the human predicament. Ever since his concerto debut at the age of nine, Reinis has performed as a concerto soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician throughout Europe and North America, as well as the Far East. He has participated in prestigious music festivals including the Lucerne Festival, the Bath International Music Festival, and the Scotia Festival of Music. His thoughtful virtuosity has delighted audiences at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, London’s Wigmore hall, New York’s Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, and Seoul Arts Center. Reinis has collaborated with leading orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Kremerata Baltica, the Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, as well as all Latvian and Lithuanian orchestras, and with conductors Pierre Boulez, Peter Eötvös, Pablo Heras-Casado, and Andris Poga, among others. His performances have been broadcast live by BBC Radio 3, NDR, Polish National Radio, and King FM.
Reinis Zariņš regularly performs in his native Latvia and has won the country’s Grand Music Award five times. He champions the work of Latvian composers – Reinis’s albums are dedicated to the music of Vasks, Garūta, Vītols, Mediņš, Dzenītis and others. For his service to Latvian culture, Reinis has been awarded the Order of the Three Stars. Reinis’s striving for exchanges of beauty in all art forms has resulted not only in a vibrant collaboration with Trio Palladio, but also in various multimedia projects including a performance project musicpaintingLIVE with painter Maryleen Schiltkamp. Following his foundational studies in Latvia, Reinis won several scholarships to refine his talent at the Yale School of Music in the USA and the Royal Academy of Music in London. His most important teachers have included Boris Berman, Raffi Kharajanyan, Christopher Elton, and Renē Salaks. Away from the piano, Reinis enjoys long-distance running, being with his children, and seeking glimpses of the Beyond in many other ways.
The first part of the album “Undulations” features colorful palette of music by Andris Dzenītis (1978) – expressive, saturated, rich in colours and polarised in its contrasts, exploring the field of tonal and modal sound, Santa Ratniece (1977) – processual, where time expands like an illuminated horizon, revealing infinity, containing layers of various depth, and Matīss Čudars (1991) who has a a diverse musical upbringing encompassing math-rock, jazz, classical music and avant-garde improv and transcends genres and aesthetics, constantly exploring new musical frontiers. It also features compositions by Linda Leimane (1989) whose music often tend to be physicality and bodily art related, and Krists Auznieks (1992) who composes with the conviction that beauty carries moral weight and whose works move between the intimate and the monumental, animated by a deep engagement with literature, philosophy, and the contemplative traditions.
The second disc begins with “Ave Maria” by a musical pilgrim Andrejs Selickis (1960) whose spiritual and musical teacher was Arvo Pärt and who believes that there is nothing more sacred in music than monody, and continues with works by Imants Zemzaris (1951), representative of postmodernism, striving for consonant harmony and a sense of neo-romantic beauty, and “a priest of euphony” Georgs Pelēcis (1947), inspired by the presence of specific natural objects and the different phases of the day. Finally, there’s Three nocturnes by Arturs Maskats (1957), a Latvian composer who expresses a vision of art that is emotionally exposed and based on human emotions. His firm, intuitively coloured music is grounded in Neo-romantic traditions with the constant undercurrent of a tender smile, as if turning over in its mind aristocratic, supposedly nostalgically beautiful memories.
SKANi is a division of the Latvian Music Information Centre (LMIC). Funded by the Latvian Ministry of Culture, its goal is to produce high quality recordings of Latvian classical music performed by both emerging and established Latvian musicians and promote Latvia’s classical music heritage through its distinctive and varied programming. Founded in 2014, it has released 180 recordings and has longstanding relationships with the Latvian Radio Choir, Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, State Choir “Latvia”, Sinfonietta Riga, Liepāja Symphony Orchestra and many other soloists and chamber music groups.