Singer Naumova readies for North American tour

Andris Straumanis | 

It was a little after 4 p.m. earlier this month when Marija Naumova answered her mobile phone. The constant drone in the background belied that she was behind the wheel, driving somewhere in Rīga. “We could talk now, but it would be better if you’d call back in 15 minutes,” Naumova said to a reporter in the American Midwest.

Fifteen minutes later the background noise was gone, although Naumova sounded as if she had just caught her breath.

Small wonder: The popular singer had just wrapped up a trio of performances as part of her “Divas sejas” show in three different Latvian cities, was readying for another concert and, apparently, just beginning to think about her upcoming tour of North America. Also on Naumova’s calendar is next spring’s “Sound of Music” show in Rīga featuring Baltic artists.

A year and a half after her Eurovision Song Contest victory in Tallinn, Estonia, the singer and her team are as occupied as ever.

At least Naumova has had some time off. After a busy spring and summer, including co-hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in Latvia, Naumova and her yoga instructor headed off to India to relax.

“It was fantastic,” Naumova said of her two weeks near the Tibetan border. While the trip’s influence might not be heard immediately in her music, Naumova said she’s found a “simple peace.”

She’ll need it.

In late November and early December, a skeleton crew will be in Canada and the United States, traveling to 10 Latvian communities to perform a baker’s dozen of concerts with material from several of Naumova’s recent albums, as well as some new songs.

“It will all be live,” the singer said of the North American shows. Band members are to include a guitar player, a percussionist and a synthesizer player, Naumova explained.

“And, of course, the voice,” Naumova added with a light laugh.

Most audiences may expect to hear material from her album Noslēpumi, released last year, as well as work inspired by her collaboration with composer Raimonds Pauls. Shows at The Note in Chicago and at the American Latvian Youth Association congress in California might include songs from her 2001 French album, Ma voix, ma voie, and perhaps some material in English, she explained. (Naumova, who was educated in law, speaks five languages, including her native Russian, Latvian, English, French and Italian.)

The exact set list will be driven by a sense of what the audience is like, Naumova said.

The singer won’t be focusing just on entertaining Latvian audiences. Meetings are planned with American record producers, too, she said, but declined to discuss details. Besides Latvia, her albums so far have been released in France and Germany.

The North American tour will place Naumova in Chicago for two concerts on Nov. 23; in Kalamazoo, Mich., on Nov. 24; in Minneapolis, Minn., on Nov. 26; at the ALYA congress in Los Angeles on Nov. 29; in Indianapolis, Ind., on Dec. 2; in Cleveland, Ohio, on Dec. 4; in Toronto for two shows on Dec. 6; in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Dec. 10; in New York on Dec. 12 and 13; and at the Priedaine camp near Freehold, N.J., on Dec. 14. This will be Naumova’s second time in the United States. She performed last year at the Baltic Celebration concert in Washington, D.C.

The concert tour is sponsored by ALYA and the New York-based cultural organization Tilts.

Marija Naumova

Popular Latvian singer Marija Naumova will tour North America in late November and early December. (Photo courtesy Baltic Records Group)

Andris Straumanis is a special correspondent for and a co-founder of Latvians Online. From 2000–2012 he was editor of the website.

Auction of hockey pucks to help Latvian kids

Andris Straumanis | 

An online auction of hockey pucks and other sports memorabilia, the proceeds of which will benefit Latvian children, is scheduled from Nov. 20-30 on the eBay service, the Milwaukee, Wisc.-based Kids First Fund has announced.

The “All-Stars Hockey Puck Auction for Kids” will feature hockey pucks signed by more than 115 National Hockey League players and celebrities.

Among them are Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr, Pavel Bure, Mike Modano, Bill Guerin, Marty Turco, Ed Belfour, JS Giguere, Brian Leetch, Marian Gaborik, Nikolai Khabibulin, Jeremy Roenick, Jason Arnott, Teemu Selanne, “Mr. Hockey” Gordie Howe, Kids First Fund board member Arturs Irbe and honorary director Sergei Zholtok. Irbe and Zholtok are from Latvia.

The auction will be available at members.ebay.com/aboutme/kidsfirstfund/.

“Sergei Zholtok of the Minnesota Wild and Arturs Irbe have been tremendous assets in organizing our auction,” Jay Sorensen, Kids First Fund board president, said in a press release. “During 2003, Arturs and Sergei personally asked fellow NHL players to donate autographed hockey pucks and other items. Their efforts along with the generosity of players and team staff will raise thousands of dollars for our projects in Latvia.”

The Kids First Fund supports programs in Latvia to educate child welfare professionals such as police officers, judges, social workers and prosecutors on child abuse issues. Direct assistance is also given to centers providing care for abused children. The fund also anticipates it will develop Latvia’s first family shelter for abused children and their mothers during 2004.

Further information about the Kids First Fund is available from the charity’s Web site.

Andris Straumanis is a special correspondent for and a co-founder of Latvians Online. From 2000–2012 he was editor of the website.

Documentary captures youth in Soviet Latvia

Andrejs Makwitz | 

A group of Latvian punks is among people studied in Juris Podnieks’ 1986 documentary.

The body of work by Juris Podnieks lends itself to superlatives that often sound too good to be true. His accidental death in 1990 at the age of 42 deprived Latvian film of an incredible talent who would have been entering the prime of his career. Podnieks’ skill and talent combined to make a filmmaker who would be considered great not only in the context of Latvian film, but by any global cinematic standard. This is made even more extraordinary given where and when he made his films. Working under Soviet rule as a documentarian, a genre that demands clarity and truth under a government that provided neither, he managed to make singular films that withstand the test of time.

Perhaps no other film exemplifies this better than Vai viegli būt jaunam? (Is it Easy to be Young?). Released in 1986, the film played to packed houses across the Soviet Union and to critical accolades in the West.

The film opens with rock concert footage spliced with coverage of the trial of several youths who were charged with the vandalism of a train at the conclusion of that concert. Podnieks contrasted the exuberance and implied rebel spirit of the concert with shots of the accused standing uncomfortably before those who would judge them. There is no question how this trial will turn out. It’s a forgone conclusion. They don’t stand a chance before these authoritarian figures who deliver the “facts” without passion or emotion and with an unwavering conviction of their “right” and “righteousness.” The accused don’t even attempt to defend themselves, not as an admission of guilt, but with a hopeless resignation to their fate. The only one of them to even attempt to raise a defense is eventually sentenced to several years of hard labor.

And so starts the exploration of whether it is easy to be young. Podnieks presented a variety of subjects in various settings providing us with a wide cross-section of youths from various walks of life and divergent destinations. He created a snapshot of time which not only captured the difficulties of growing up, but also of the Soviet Union as it was beginning to unravel under its own banality, hypocrisy and utter disregard for humanity.

We meet an eager Krishna who seems to be rebelling against what he perceives as a corrupt society, but who does so by replacing one form of blind allegiance with another. Down with Lenin! Up with Hari!

We meet a young punk who is exceptionally articulate, intelligent and informed, but for all of that can’t see beyond his own fatalistic nihilism. There’s a young girl who failed in her suicide attempt being browbeaten by those who are supposed to cure her and a first-time filmmaker who isn’t sure of what he wants to say but knows that he needs to say something. All of them will seem familiar to those of us who can remember entering adulthood regardless of where and when we did so.

But perhaps the most poignant moment in the film is the before-and-after interviews with young conscripts who were sent to Afghanistan. The contrasts are as shocking as those of the most cynical and broken combat veterans as seen in any documentary about war and its consequences. Watching a young veteran walking through a city filled with people on whose behalf he had believed to be fighting and in defense of a system and ideals that he no longer can share is as powerful of an image as I’ve seen on film.

Podnieks’ greatest strength was in getting these individuals to reveal so much. We get the feeling as if we are sitting in on a late night conversation between friends where they let down their guard and reveal their true selves and feelings. Even more extraordinary is that Podnieks got them to do so in a time and a place where public introspection of this kind often had severe consequences.

The film’s greatest strength is in showing what it means to “grow up,” and answering the title question with: It never is, nor should it ever be.

Details

Vai viegli būt jaunam?

Juris Podnieks, director

Rīgas kinostudija,  1986

Notes: In Latvian. Documentary, color, 80 minutes. Screenplay: Ābrams Kleckins; director of photography: Kalvis Zalcmanis; music: Mārtiņš Brauns.