Author: Elga Ozols

The Making of a Dziesmu Svētki, Part 5: The Folk Dancing Show

Elga Ozols | 

On a gray day in early December, a small crew of folk-dancing organizers from Philadelphia was hard at work inspecting the nooks and crannies of the Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, thoughtfully jotting sketches in their notepads, counting seats and wheelchair spaces, and talking with arena management. All around, staff members were busy setting up for an indoor soccer game. All business, the folk-dancing group’s leader stood in one goal, pulled out her stopwatch, and proceeded to polka past the forklifts and rolls of astroturf, timing how long it would take an ordinary folk-dance troupe to get from one end of the arena to the other. Eventually the representatives from the lighting company arrived, and the dancers headed to the center of the floor to greet them.

“Hi, I’m Astrīda,” the group’s leader said as she extended her hand. “I’m a math teacher.”

Astrīda Liziņa has danced in more Latvian song and dance festivals than she can recall. Her first was Cleveland 1973, where she performed as a member of the children’s group Ņudžersijas Zaglītis. She continued dancing with Ņudžersijas Dzintars in high school and Montreālas Ačkups in college. After school, Liziņa moved to Philadelphia, where she began teaching Latvian language and folk dancing at the local Latvian school and leading children’s dance group Filadelfijas Dzirkstele. Under her 26 years of leadership, Dzirkstele has expanded to include three generations of dancers; the original children grew up and continued dancing, and the children’s parents, wanting to join in on the fun, formed a senior branch of the troupe. In addition to her lifetime of dance experience and quarter-century-plus of dance leadership, Liziņa is no stranger to large-scale logistics, having run New York’s Latvian children’s summer camp Katskiļi for a full decade in the 1990s.

When Marisa Gudrā, the future XIV Latvian Song and Dance Festival organizing committee chair, first floated the idea of hosting a festival on the East Coast, the committee knew the idea would be a non-starter without three difficult-to-find yet crucial elements: a city with available and appropriate venues (which we have already covered in this series), a music director (coming up in a future instalment), and a folk-dancing director. Liziņa, with her extensive dance leadership, her deep East Coast roots, and her proven organizational skills, was the natural choice for the latter role. But she says she was surprised by the proposal, and spent a full month considering whether she had the time and skills necessary for the task. Having participated in festivals as a troupe leader for decades, she was already aware of what a titanic job this would be, and recognized that her experience leading three troupes in front of a couple hundred people at a Jāņi summer solstice celebration was different from leading three dozen troupes in front of thousands of people at dziesmu svētki.

Support and encouragement came from two sources. First, recognizing that such an undertaking would realistically become a full family project, Liziņa called a family meeting, where her husband (and de facto co-organizer) Andrejs and their three children overwhelmingly agreed that the project was worth taking on. Second, she turned to the masters: previous festival folk-dancing show leaders and renowned choreographers Māra Simpsone and Selga Apse (Hamilton) and Iveta Asons (Indianapolis). These folk-dancing icons were immediately reassuring, offering and continuing to provide counsel for the duration of preparations.

Even with the support of her family and advisors, Liziņa recognized that no one person could manage a project of this magnitude, so her first step upon accepting the job was to recruit a full team. For this she turned to the current and former members and supporters of Dzirkstele. In the spring of 2016 she called an all-hands meeting, and Philadelphia Latvian society responded with enthusiasm; 32 eager people attended. Volunteers signed up for various tasks and committees (though after prodding, Liziņa admits that she’d already mapped out who should take each task), and they were off!

Philadelphia dāmu komiteja leader Baiba Akkerman, who, along with Ieva Bundža, has been tasked with providing lunch to several hundred hungry dancers at this summer’s festival, says she was surprised at the first meeting by just how much goes into putting on a show – and how much it all costs. From lighting and sound design to large-scale decorating, catering and the logistics of moving hundreds of dancers around the arena, she had never realized, having danced in previous festivals, just how much was going on behind the scenes and how each element eats up time and resources. Even her somewhat straightforward task of finding caterers has been complicated by factors such as arena requirements and a dearth of caterers willing to work over the holiday weekend.

Similar complications exist even for something like dance selection. It’s not just Liziņa picking her personal favorites and calling it a day. Instead, a committee has been assembled of dancers and former dancers of various ages. First, each member went out on his or her own and brainstormed a list of favorites. They then came together and assembled a master list. Then the toughest job began: picking which beloved dances to remove from the very long list. An early and relatively easy step was to avoid repetition and cut (almost) every dance performed in the past couple North American festivals. Another major consideration was whether there were enough fun dances for the increasing number of smaller groups, which are often left out of the more popular eight-pair dances. The committee also wanted to ensure there were options for various dance abilities, ranging from simple dances for older or less experienced troupes to fast, complicated dances for more advanced groups. Finally, the committee strove to evenly fill each segment of the program, titled Dejā uz Latvijas simtgadi (“Dancing to Latvia’s Centennial”) and divided into three historical sections: dance before exile, dance during exile, and dance after exile. Once the committee had come up with a solid list, Liziņa sent it to previous folk-dance program leaders for their expert opinion, resulting in a few more tweaks.

But Liziņa still faced a summer’s worth of tasks before anything could be finalized: informing choreographers that their dances had been selected, and tracking down all the apraksti (written instructions), videos, and audio recordings necessary for troupe leaders to adequately instruct their dancers. Particular attention was paid to finding audio recordings good enough to use during the actual performance, as the idea of using live music was quickly scrapped for budget considerations (for which I as a dancer am thankful, since live music can often differ in pacing and arrangement from the music used to learn the dances).

The deadline for troupe sign-up came in the fall and provided a first reliable gauge of interest. An initial questionnaire in the spring had yielded positive results, but with this new official response, any lingering fears about diminished dancer counts disappeared. Liziņa had initially hoped for 450 dancers; instead, 650 (spread across 35 troupes) registered. Why the surge? Good news: it has come largely thanks to the next generation of folk dancers. Children will make up one third of all performers in this summer’s show, a welcome sign for the future of Latvian dance, considering that previous years have shown a decrease in child participation. For one, GVV (summer high school Gaŗezers) will be in attendance, bringing with it nearly a hundred young dancers – and in many cases inspiring younger siblings to make the trek with their respective children’s troupes. There is also a single troupe coming from Latvia with 85 child and teen dancers. But even without the infusion of young dancers from these two sources, the participant count happily exceeds expectations.

A lot can be gleaned about the changing nature of Latvian dance from the demographics of the participating troupes. In some ways this folk-dancing performance will be the same as it has been in festivals past, but in other ways it is changing. Baltimore will continue a recent festival trend of welcoming participants from around the globe, with five troupes arriving from Latvia and two from Ireland. Stateside, areas like Rochester and New Jersey are seeing the rebirth of dormant troupes, while newer groups such as Denver’s Virpulītis are thriving. Several chapters, new and old, are being run by first-time leaders, many of whom have arrived from Latvia and thus have little to no previous experience with an American festival. And a few long-standing, established troupes are run by non–Latvian speakers. All of these factors signal a rebirth and continuing growth for the North American Latvian dance scene, but they also require clear communication by Liziņa and her crew; gone are the days of saying, “Just do it like we always do,” as plenty of new folks are inspired to enter the scene.

Five months before the festival, what is still on the plate for the capable team from Philly? Plenty. Dāmu komitejas from across the continent have been chipping in to help cover the costs of feeding the dancers. Following the December walk-through, the decorating committee started planning under the leadership of Ņujorkas Jumis dancer Andris Krūmkalns, who works on Broadway sets for a living. For them the focus will be on efficiency: giant space, limited budget – good luck. And sound and lighting design continues apace, requiring the careful planning of set pieces, lights, and sound equipment; elaborate calculations regarding the length and number of trusses, the weight of the lights, equipment, and set pieces, and the size of the motor needed to lift that weight; as well as a full team of paid staff. After several meetings, estimates, and evaluations by friends in the lighting business in other cities, an overall plan (and acceptable quote) has finally been hashed out, but details are still being finalized.

For Liziņa, the next big step is designing floor plans – a much more involved task than it might seem. For each dance, Liziņa has to check which troupes are dancing, where they’re coming from, and where they need to go. A troupe can’t dance off through Gate A and immediately dance on through Gate B. It takes meticulous planning and attention to detail. Thankfully, Liziņa is up to the challenge, as you will see for yourself this summer in Baltimore.

“The Making of a Dziesmu Svētki” is an ongoing series documenting the behind-the-scenes process of organizing a Latvian song and dance festival.

The XIV Latvian-American Song and Dance Festival will take place in Baltimore, Maryland, from June 29 to July 3, 2017. For more information, please visit www.latviansongfest2017.com or write to info@latviansongfest2017.com.

The Making of a Dziesmu Svētki, Part 4: Venue Selection

Elga Ozols | 

As soon as I heard we might be hosting a Latvian song festival on the East Coast, the flashbacks hit. “Well,” I thought with a laugh, “It’s a good thing that we just had all that practice with venue selections.”

It had only been half a year since Washington, D.C. had hosted the traveling annual multi-sport tournament ALA Meistarsacīkstes. Several of us who had helped organize Meistarsacīkstes were now working on the song festival, and the memories came rushing back: All day every day for several months we had been glued to our phones, attempting (and repeatedly failing at) what should have been a simple task: booking some venues. It’s the type of thing that seems straightforward and easy until you try it; you call and ask for availability and wave some cash, the venue says yes or no, and boom, you’re booked. Simple, right? Oh no, not even close. Where event venues are concerned, nothing is ever simple.

Before I go any further, I want to make clear that the organizing committee could not be more thrilled with the festival’s venues, from the grand hotels that provide impressive views of Baltimore Harbor to the intimate Baltimore Soundstage, just a six-minute walk away and host of the festival’s first party. Indeed, one of the main reasons we selected Baltimore as the host city was because we knew it has excellent theaters, arenas, clubs, hotels, churches, and restaurants, and we’re confident that you’ll agree once you experience them. But that doesn’t mean that getting all of the pieces aligned has been easy.

The very first challenge regarding pinning down event venues was timing. Arguably the single greatest obstacle we’ve faced as an organizing committee has been having just 20 months to plan the entire festival. That may seem like a long time, but many venues get booked much earlier. One major theater was already reserved for a touring Broadway show. A hotel that we had visited and seemed promising as the festival’s home base got snagged by another group in the couple weeks between our first and second visits. Even earlier, when we were considering in which city to host the festival, towns like Boston were immediately scrapped due to venue unavailability (see Part 2 in this series).

Ironically, the surprisingly more common timing dilemma was that venues often wouldn’t know their availability that far in advance, and we found ourselves making inquiries too early rather than too late. The issue mostly came up as we searched for locations for smaller events, like the play (Ceļā uz mājām, presented by the Latvian National Theatre Company) and smaller concerts. Baltimore has a handful of very cool little theaters, which seemed promising at first, but at the time when we approached them, most didn’t yet know their rental availability for 2017. In many cases their own company’s season needed to be set. Or construction projects got in the way. A world-renowned music conservatory with a plethora of potential stages told us to check back at the start of the school year, which we did, only to be met with: “Turns out we’re renovating. Check back in the spring.” Considering that we were hoping to start selling tickets in the fall and were budgeting for and expecting thousands of attendees, checking back was not an option. And so it continued. Each venue had a different sweet spot in terms of timeline; catching them at just the right time proved to be difficult.

The second major challenge regarding pinning down venues for our shows was budget constraints. Letting our imaginations run wild and disregarding financial limitations, we explored all sorts of inventive scenarios, from a dance party among the dinosaurs of the science museum to jaundejas at the open-air pavilion on the waterfront. But these wish-list ideas ran up against one hard truth: Our largest events require seating for a couple thousand people and stage space for several hundred. This audience-performer ratio is not too common, and it most certainly does not come cheap. The only two ways we could have made these larger events break even on their own would have been to double their ticket prices (don’t worry, we wouldn’t do that to you folks) or to double our audience size (please bring friends!). And so, with the larger venues uncompromisingly eating up big chunks of the festival budget, finding affordable options for the other events so that they could help subsidize the main events was crucial. Unfortunately, the search for modestly priced smaller venues turned up less-than-ideal solutions, as nearby options (such as local high schools) failed to meet the professional standard of the event, and more appropriate options were too far away.

Luckily, we were saved by two perfect sources that served as financially responsible options. First, our trusty hotels came to the rescue, offering up fantastic spaces for most of the evening events, the art and fashion exhibits, and even the theater performance. And a local Latvian led us to a hidden gem of a church so beautiful and ideal that we probably would have jammed every event into it if we could have (in the end, we went with just two concerts).

Timeline and budget are obviously the main factors in venue selection, and in theory, the story should end right there. But even once you are on a venue’s calendar, things can go wrong. You can never really rest until the contract is signed and countersigned. And waiting on the finalization of the contract can be frustrating, since even in today’s modern world communication is rarely instant. Our seemingly monumental festival is small potatoes to our largest and priciest venue, and so while we got a base price estimate right away, getting a final estimate that included correct audio/video and staffing costs (which had the potential to more than quadruple our expenses) took weeks. Considering that this venue’s rent and all of its non-negotiable ancillary costs constitute the festival’s single greatest expense, we were understandably anxious to receive an estimate so that we could figure out if the rest of the festival was financially possible. It was the very epitome of catch-22 timing: we had to book right away to reserve our slot, but wouldn’t know for months whether or not we could afford it. We also needed to advertise the festival far in advance so that potential attendees would keep their busy summer schedules open, but we wouldn’t know if the festival was financially viable until after we had announced that it was taking place.

Our single greatest venue-booking frustration came in June, mere weeks before hotel and flight reservations would become available: one of our venues went MIA. A major one. One that had been on the books as a safe bet from the very beginning. All that remained was to sign the contract and send our deposit. But no contract came. Several members of our team called and emailed repeatedly over a several-week period. Nothing. Radio silence. To this day, we still have not received an explanation, though we gather that, despite assurances in the winter that logistics would not be an issue, they likely backed out due to the headache of assembling choral risers with a short turnaround time.

Thankfully, we found a solution when we discovered that one of the city’s most beautiful large concert halls was available — and not only available, but, as it turned out, perfect for its intended event. While some (myself included) might initially envision a doomsday scenario when such potential setbacks reveal themselves, this situation proves that, with careful attention and planning, you can find a solution or workaround for virtually anything.

And now, I end with a confession: this article was originally intended to come out months ago, because we had fully expected to have all of our venues, big and small, completely finalized by the end of the summer. Alas, though we almost made it — we opened the ticket store in October– one venue-less orphan event was responsible for the delay.

That event, surprisingly, was the chamber music concert. At first glance it should have been easy to procure a location: musicians can set up pretty much anywhere, right? Baltimore’s own symphony orchestra recently performed a pop-up concert at nearby Penn Station. And audience capacity shouldn’t have been an obstacle: we only needed seating for a couple hundred (instead of the couple thousand expected for larger events). Dozens of venues in Baltimore fit the bill, but almost all had issues with scheduling or were too far from the hotels. But the real obstacle was the flīģelis (a word I’d never heard before and had to repeatedly look up because I thought our music director had pulled it from a Dr. Seuss book just to mess with me). Few places (including our otherwise-convenient church venue) have a grand piano nowadays, and there are considerable additional costs associated with bringing one in from the outside. With all traditional venues crossed off the list, our quest for a grand piano, or for a nearby space where we could afford to bring in a grand piano, forced us to look outside the box again.

We fell in love with one of these unconventional spaces as soon as we saw it: a whiskey warehouse turned outsider-art gallery, the American Visionary Art Museum is walkable, affordable, and just plain cool. But could we manage the cost and logistics of bringing in a flīģelis? It turns our we didn’t need to worry about it. “Well, sure – we could probably get a grand piano up to the third floor by tilting it on its side in the elevator,” explained the rental manager, “but…  we can also use the baby grand that’s already on that floor.” Sometimes providence truly saves the best for last.

For full descriptions, photos, and maps of festival sites, check out the festival website’s “Event Venues” and “Location” pages. And, of course, you’ll have the opportunity to experience all these amazing venues for yourself this summer in Baltimore.

“The Making of a Dziesmu Svētki” is an ongoing series documenting the behind-the-scenes process of organizing a Latvian song and dance festival.

The XIV Latvian-American Song and Dance Festival will take place in Baltimore, Maryland, from June 29 to July 3, 2017. For more information, please visit www.latviansongfest2017.com or write to info@latviansongfest2017.com.

The Making of a Dziesmu Svētki, Part 3: Rīc Kom

Elga Ozols | 

You know the beginning of any good ensemble-cast blockbuster, where the ringleader travels to goofy locations collecting a ragtag bunch of specialized misfits to assemble his crack squad? The tough guy, the master thief, the tech nerd, the female. Collecting the squad that makes up the Rīc Kom (“rīcības komiteja,” or organizing committee) is just like that. I’m not saying that we’re all a bunch of superheroes, but, we’re basically all a bunch of superheroes.

Take our fearless leader, Marisa Gudrā (whose name fittingly translates to “Marisa the Wise”), the Professor X who oversees our shenanigans with stern, quiet patience. The Boston native pretty much majored in Running a Dziesmu Svētki, racking up degrees in Music, Economics, and Arts Management. She has served on the boards of the American Latvian Association and the American Latvian Youth Association, and has coordinated numerous events for the latter. Gudrā is a meticulous and precise workhorse, one of the best task jugglers I’ve ever encountered, and if it were in any way possible for a single person to organize and run an entire Latvian song festival singlehandedly, she’d be my pick. Alas, some jobs are just too big, and for those you need a ragtag team. You need…

The Rīc Kom! Separate from the festival’s talented program directors and their teams, the nine-member Rīc Kom handles overarching festival logistics and makes sure all the fragmented pieces come together. While program directors hail from all along the East Coast and beyond, Gudrā stuck with her fellow D.C. locals for Rīc Kom.

Four of us, Gudrā included, recently worked together on the Rīc Kom for 2015’s ALA Meistarsacīkstes, an annual sports tournament. Nik Timrots, in addition to working with the American Latvian Youth Association and the Joint Baltic American National Committee, was the head of this Meistarsacīkstes Rīc Kom and, having concocted the original Dziesmu Svētki plan with Gudrā, naturally took his place as her right-hand man. Working as a transportation manager for the University of Maryland Department of Transportation Services with 3 million annual passengers and 200 bus drivers under his watchful eye, Timrots is no stranger to large-scale logistics. He took a strong lead in early planning and research, contacting venues and hotels, and keeping initial efforts focused and broken down into smaller tasks.

Also sliding over from the Meistarsacīkstes Rīc Kom were Inga Bebre and myself. My Latvian society credits include work with children’s summer camp Katskiļi, the Latvian School of Washington, the Latvian Lutheran Church of Washington, and D.C. folk-dancing troupe Namejs.  Having been the webmaster for both Namejs and Meistarsacīkstes, I happily took on the Dziesmu Svētki roles of webmaster, secretary, and marketing-team member. I can think of nobody with whom I would rather work on any Latvian project than my longtime close friend Inga Bebre, one of the most organized and dependable people I have ever met. From our time together in Namejs and Meistarsacīkstes, I know that if you want something done and done well, with a solid system in place, it should be delegated to her. Bebre most notably demonstrated her abilities while serving as the head of the Rīc Kom for the American Latvian Youth Association Congress in D.C., a complicated assignment with countless moving parts. Dependability, a mastery of spreadsheets, organizational skills, and attention to detail make Bebre the perfect candidate for one of Dziesmu Svētki’s most complicated and detail-driven tasks: ticket sales.

Gudrā wasn’t done recruiting fellow Namejs dancers.  She broached the subject of a Baltimore Dziesmu Svētki with former dancer Juris Mohseni, a Sudrabavots folk group singer and accordion player, while watching a football game. His first reaction? “Excited! Thought it would be cool!” he later told me with a huge grin. But then, “Didn’t think I would have ANY part of it!” Attending?  Sure!  Actually leading the thing? Not so much. His mind was changed by the enthusiasm of his brother, Imants, another Namejs member being recruited by Gudrā. “I wanted to do something our grandmother would be proud of, even though she’s not with us anymore,” Imants explained somberly. That sentiment got to Juris, and he committed 100%, taking on the high-pressure job of treasurer for Latvian-American society’s most expensive event. Not that Juris is at all daunted by the task; as a professional budget analyst, he’s used to dealing with billion-dollar-plus budgets (as well as his homeowners association’s $13,000 budget) on a daily basis. While Juris took on one of the most traditional Rīc Kom roles, Imants took on something newer: project technology.

“We didn’t even know that we needed all this technology, but I think it revolutionized the way that we work,” Gudrā said about Imants’s contribution. “He’s the wizard.” While Dziesmu Svētki as an event hasn’t changed much over the generations, the way in which it is organized certainly has thanks to the role of technology (imagine how much our grandparents would have appreciated MP3s while learning songs and YouTube while learning dances). Imants is responsible for researching, implementing, and patiently helping the rest of us understand the best use of technology, from online registration forms and payment options, to team workflow programs that keep Rīc Kom working efficiently — all achievements his grandmother never would have imagined in her day, but of which I am sure she is proud nonetheless.

A song and dance festival cannot survive with dancers alone, and neither can its Rīc Kom.   An enthusiastic music lover who sings in the choir at every Dziesmu Svētki, Aivars Osvalds has been active in Latvian-American society for as long as I can remember, holding positions with the American Latvian Association, the World Federation of Free Latvians, the Latvian Lutheran Church of Washington, the Lettonia fraternal organizations, and the Baltic countries exhibition at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. A lot of us knew him as the primary mover and shaker behind the re-emergence of youth seminar 2×2, where passion and drive for the project really made it take off (having attended the first of these seminars in West Virginia, I can personally attest to the success of this effort, as it proved to be one of the most inspirational weeks of my life). It was this exact drive and passion that we needed, especially to pull off a project of this size in such a short timespan, and Osvalds has definitely not been a disappointment in this regard. Brought on board to handle evening events, a colossal project on its own, he was immediately enthusiastic to help wherever needed, volunteering to work on fundraising, hotel contacts, and many other loose ends that have crept up throughout the planning process.

Osvalds immediately suggested bringing in his friend Iveta Grava, the only Rīc Kom member with prior experience in organizing a Dziesmu Svētki. Born and raised in Latvia, Grava’s extensive experience in the Latvian arts scene include not just leadership roles with two Dziesmu Svētki in Latvia, but also work at the Latvian National Opera and the World Federation of Free Latvians, membership in the prestigious Ave Sol choir, and a lifetime of music education (including a degree in harp performance). Originally slated to be our main point of contact with Latvian performers and organizations, Grava soon also took on fundraising and theatre duties, and provides beautiful Latvian-language prose for the festival’s promotional material. She describes her involvement with the Latvian saying “Iedod velnam mazo pirkstiņu un viņš paņem visu roku” (“Give the devil your pinkie and he takes your entire arm”). In other words, she was hooked like the rest of us.

Gudrā’s recruitment tale might have ended here, until fate twisted its chilly way into Gudrā’s commute one winter morning. She sat on the metro train reading some bad news on her phone: an email from a potential team member turning down one of our largest remaining positions: volunteer coordinator. Gudrā didn’t have too much time to dwell in her disappointment, however, because just then a stranger sitting nearby introduced herself. Aija Moeller, who usually rides her bike to work but was driven onto the metro due to the bitter cold, noticed Latvian symbols on Gudrā’s winter scarf. They got to talking, and soon discovered two amazing things about one another. Moeller, who had moved to D.C. from Latvia years earlier, had just read in the local church bulletin about potential Dziesmu Svētki plans and had made up her mind to offer her services. And here before her sat the very woman she had intended to contact. And Gudrā, freshly mourning her lack of a volunteer coordinator, was amazed to hear what her new acquaintance did for a living: Moeller was a volunteer coordinator for a non-profit. Newly minted as the Dziesmu Svētki volunteer coordinator, but acknowledging that she had little to do in that regard for months to come, Moeller threw herself into other essential projects, organizing the film festival, joining the marketing team, and patiently proofreading various materials.

So that’s us.  I’ll be honest: I’d never really given much thought to the Rīc Kom during previous festivals. After all, the buzz surrounding a Dziesmu Svētki is, rightly, about the excitement of seeing friends, sharing culture, dancing all day and all night; it’s not about the person filling out 501c3 paperwork.  I’ve listed here some of the relevant experience of our members, but the truth is that there’s only one thing that anyone actually needs to know about us. It’s a response that I received independently from two separate Rīc Kom teammates when I interviewed them for this article. “We are all volunteers and I think that is the answer to ‘what qualifies you to work on this,’” wrote one.

Or, as another member laughed when asked what qualifies him, “I’m willing to show up, right?”

“The Making of a Dziesmu Svētki” is an ongoing series documenting the behind-the-scenes process of organizing a Latvian song and dance festival.

The XIV Latvian-American Song and Dance Festival will take place in Baltimore, Maryland, from June 29 to July 3, 2017. For more information, please visit the Festival website or write to info@latviansongfest2017.com.