ALBA DZIESMU DIENA
A Rich Tradition
This year's concert marks our 76th year since the first Latvian Baptist choral concert in the US on March 5, 1950 in New York City! This concert grew into an annual event, which involves singers from Latvian Baptist churches in the United States and Canada.
The primary mission of the local choirs is to serve in the musical programs of their respective churches. It is at this annual concert that they have an opportunity to participate in the performance of larger and more demanding works, largely from the rich classical sacred repertoire of Latvian and Latvian Baptist composers, but other sacred choral works as well.
The chamber choir, which performed for the first time in 1982 as a youth choir, explored a different avenue of sacred music - mainly that of contemporary Christian composers. This year the chamber choir will not perform separately. However, individual musicians, singers, and instrumentalists from within the Latvian Baptist community have always, and will continue to be a part of the yearly concert performance.
The choir is composed of singers from choirs and smaller ensembles from Boston, Chicago, Quakertown, PA, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Canada, with other individual singers from across the continent.
This Year's CONCERT
This year's concert event will take place at 2:00 PM ET on Sunday, April 27, 2025, at the Latvian Lutheran Church of Boston, 58 Irving St., Brookline, MA 02445.
The concert will be a collaboration of the Latvian Baptist choirs with the Boston Latvian Choir. This combined choir will be performing works by Latvian composers Viktors Baštiks, Ēriks Ešenvalds, Kārlis Iņķis, Jānis Kalniņš, and Arvīds Purvs, as well as selections by Tom Fettke, John Rutter, and others.
The concert will also feature a meditation by the Rev. Dr. Pauls Barbīns, pastor of the Cleveland Latvian Baptist Church.
The concert will be followed by a banquet in the church fellowship hall. Banquet tickets are $25/person. In order to provide accurate numbers for our caterers please order banquet tickets in advance. Contact Zaiga Alksnīte by email for tickets: zaigina (at) gmail (dot) com no later than Saturday, April 5.