Dzintaru koncertzālei – 90: brīvdabas izstāde par gadsimtu ilgu kultūras stāstu

Marking the 90th anniversary of the Dzintari Concert Hall, an open-air exhibition is on view in the square near the concert hall, revealing the significant Latvian concert venue in a historical, architectural, and musical context.

This year marks the ninetieth anniversary of the historical concert hall built in 1936 – the current Small Hall, but the story of Dzintari's concert life begins much earlier. Already in the late 19th century, in place of the current concert hall, the Edinburgh Kurhaus concert garden operated, where audiences were initially entertained by mimes, acrobats, chansonniers, and operettas and balls took place. Meanwhile, at the beginning of the 20th century, Edinburgh became an important center of symphonic music, where orchestras from Berlin, Petersburg, and Warsaw performed, and its own symphony orchestra was established.

Large-format stands combine historical photographs, documentary facts, architectural stories, and artist quotes. The exhibition tells about the 1936 concert hall, in the construction of which timber from old Jūrmala summer houses was also used, about Ansis Cīrulis's wall paintings, the modernist summer concert hall opened in 1960, and 21st-century architectural additions.

The concert hall's special atmosphere is also revealed in the exhibition through the memories and reflections of outstanding Latvian music personalities – Raimonds Pauls, Iveta Apkalna, Marina Rebeka, Elīna Garanča, and Inese Galante – about concerts, the presence of the sea and wind, the closeness of the audience, and the Dzintari Concert Hall as a living, internationally recognized cultural venue.

The exhibition allows one to get to know in a concentrated form the development of the Dzintari Concert Hall and its significance in the Latvian cultural space – a place where music, architecture, and the Jūrmala landscape have been meeting for over a century. The open-air exhibition will be on view until October 31 of this year.