Larisa Mondrusa, a popular singer who left Latvia during the 1970s to live in exile in West Germany, will return for a 15-city tour of Latvia beginning Oct. 29 in Cēsis, Baltic Records Group has announced.

BRG in December 2003 released Kā senās dienās, a collection of Mondrusa’s most popular songs. Mondrusa at that time returned to Latvia to perform a number of concerts in Rīga and Jūrmala, the recording company said in a press release.

Two albums of her old hits in Russian were released in 2002 and 2003 in Moscow. The singer now is at work on more albums.

Mondrusa became popular as a jazz and schlager singer in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Soviet-occupied Latvia and in Moscow, according to her official Web site. But the lack of “patriotic” material in her songs caused her to fall from grace and Mondrusa decided to emigrate in 1973. In Germany she became popular using the stage name Larissa.

The concert in Cēsis is scheduled at 19.00 hours Oct. 29 in the city’s cultural center.

More information about Mondrusa is available on her Web site, www.mondrus.info.

A concert tour by pianist Armands Ābols of Latvia will take the artist to four cities in the United States before he returns home to play two concerts in honor of his late teacher, Ilze Graubiņa.

The tour, sponsored by the New York-based cultural organization TILTS, begins Oct. 23 in Houston, Texas, and concludes Nov. 6 in Sigulda, Latvia.

Ābols first gained international recognition in 1992 when he won the Maria Canals International Piano Competition in Barcelona, Spain. Since then he has performed in Europe, North America and South America.

Ilze Graubiņa was a well-known professor at the Latvian Academy of Music. She died in 2001.

Concerts in the United States are scheduled at 8 p.m. Oct. 23 in the Houston First Baptist Church Morris Chapel, 7401 Katy Freeway, Houston, Texas; at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 29 at the Kosciuszko Foundation, 15 East 65th St., New York; at 5 p.m. Oct. 30 in St. John’s Church, 301 N. Newtown Street Road, Newtown Square, Penn., and at 3 p.m. Oct. 31 in the First & Second Church, 66 Marlborough St.,  Boston, Mass.

In Latvia, concerts are scheduled at 19.00 hours Nov. 5 in Rīgas Latviešu biedrība,  Merķeļu ielā 13, Rīga, and at 18.00 hours Nov. 6 in Baltā flīģeļa zāle, Šveices ielā 19, Sigulda.

To present their new “modern chamber music” recording Paraleles, flautist Liene Sējāne and guitarist Kristaps Grasis plan to travel from Germany for a six-city tour of Latvia from Oct. 21-Oct. 30.

Grasis, who studied classical and jazz guitar in Germany and Sweden, works as a music teacher, composes music and performs concerts in Germany. Sējāne, a 2001 graduate of the Emīls Dārziņš music school in Latvia, now is a student in Muenster, Germany.

The two perform their own compositions as well as work by composers such as Bela Bartok, Astor Piazolla and Maurice Ravel. Their performances feature a blend of electrified and acoustic instruments, including the flute, the guitar and drums, as well as instruments more familiar to listeners of chamber music.

Grasis and Sējāne have previously performed together in Latvia, Germany and Sweden.

For the concert tour, they will be joined by well-known Latvian oboe player Normunds Šnē as well as Juris Sējāns on bass, Leons Sējāns on electric guitar and Reinis Sējāns on percussion.

During the concerts, the group will perform work by Erik Sati, Piazolla, Juris and Leons Sējāns, Grasis and other composers. The concerts are scheduled at 19.00 hours Oct. 21 in the Jelgava culture hall; 18.00 hours Oct. 23 in Jūrmala Theatre; 16.00 hours Oct. 24 in the Valmiera cultural center; 19.00 hours Oct. 28 in the Wagner Hall in Rīga; 19.00 hours Oct. 29 in Bauska community center, and 18.00 hours Oct. 30 in the concert hall Baltais Flīģelis in Sigulda.