The internet home for our spring, 2010, stay in Riga, Latvia, while Bill teaches at the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music as a Fulbright Scholar. This is not an official U.S. Department of State blog. The views and information presented are our own and do not represent the Fulbright Program, C.I.E.S., the U.S. Department of State, the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music, or Northwest Missouri State University.
Last week was quite busy with musical activity. Bill played 3rd trumpet and the muted piccolo trumpet solo on Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition for 3 Childrens' Concerts at the Liela Gilde (Large Hall...home of the Latvian National Symphony) on Wednesday, February 17.
Trumpeters Janis Ivuskans, Viljams Ricardsons, and Guntis Supe
The performance was broken into several parts, with a narrator discussing the music and other things about the orchestra and instruments. Niki, Sarah, and Leah attended the first performance, which featured students from the Art Academy painting on-stage while the orchestra performed. Although we didn't understand much of the conversation, the concept was very cool and we all had loads of fun.
On Friday, February 19, the J.V.L.M.A. Symphony Orchestra performed Pictures, a Latvian piece called Migla, and Chopin's Piano Concerto in E at the Great Hall on Barona iela. Janis Ivuskans was called away to perform with the symphony in Liepaja, so Bill stepped-in to play principal trumpet for the performance.
On Saturday, we took a train ride to Sigulda, Latvia, with fellow Fulbrighters Ardyth, Gabe, and Tom. This city features the luge/skeleton/bobsled track on which Latvian Olympic athletes train. We rode the "soft bobslejs" on the actual track. Here's a video we found that features our exact experience (minus sideways snow in near-blizzard conditions!): Sigulda Soft Bobslejs
It...was...AWESOME! Apparently, we reached speeds up to 70 Kilometers per hour, which is over 40 MPH, through 12 twists and turns. Gabe and Tom were the first brave souls to take the plunge.
Needless to say, we had fun. When we reached the bottom, two soft bobsleds were piled into a truck, along with the passengers.
Our truck passenger friends from Lithuania
When we reached the top again, we traveled to the men's start (starts a bit higher and has 4 extra turns before joining-up with the women's start). Here are some fun pics:
After we grabbed some lunch, we took a micro-bus to Turaida Castle, a 13th-century medieval structure. We took a short hike...
then found the Watch Tower, which was open to the public. Everyone walked all the way to the top through some steep, winding stairs and caught some neat scenery along the way.
Minus the castle and watch tower, the landscape looked a lot like Warsaw, Missouri, after a major snow.
There was a museum that we visited for a short time. We were a bit rushed because we didn't want to miss the early train home. Sarah and Leah had never ridden a train before, so this was a fun experience on many different levels.
We arrived back in Riga and are still talking about our trip to Sigulda. Although there are many other places we will likely visit while in Latvia, it's likely that we will return to this beautiful place.
Priecīgu Valentīna dienu everybody! We hope that everyone had a fantastic Valentine's Day. Here's our "Valentine Story:" Niki and Bill started dating in the summer of 1987 when we were both students at Lee's Summit (MO) High School. We were married December 19, 1992, and now have two beautiful daughters, Sarah and Leah. We now live in Riga, Latvia, and have later bed-times than in Maryville, MO, U.S.A.
This is Liva Kalnina, our Latvian language teacher. We have been meeting with her about once a week, and she has been very helpful teaching us basic pronounciation, vocabulary, and important history and traditions of the country. The Latvian language has several sounds that English simply doesn't share, so Liva has had her work cut-out for her! We feel lucky to have found her (thanks Irene!) and Liva has been a big help.
Bill played trumpet at St. Saviour's Anglican Church in Old Town yesterday morning. The organist is Kristine Adamaite, an outstanding musician and graduate of the J.V.L.M.A. Here's a link (warning, the mp3 recorder was acting-up a bit and there are some funny sounds at the beginning):
We've had a few inquiries about the home-schooling adventure. We've settled-in to what seems to be a workable morning routine for everybody. On weekday mornings, Sarah and Bill walk to the Music Academy, find a room from one of the nice "key-ladies," and hang-out for a couple of hours, during which time she works on assignments (spelling, mathematics, hand-writing, reading, journaling, piano practice) and he practices trumpet. During this time, Leah stays with Niki and they work on things here at the apartment. The late-morning and afternoon are filled with lots of other educational activities, so everyone is getting a lot done. We feel very fortunate to have the help of Mrs. Farlow and Mrs. Rogers from the Horace Mann Laboratory School at Northwest Missouri State University.
The educational system is a bit different here, and many of the applied teachers at the Music Academy don't actually have an office...they check-out a key from one of the ladies at the entrance of the building, then proceed to practice or teach in that room. There is a master schedule, but many of the lessons get moved around because of schedule conflicts. No complaints, by the way; it's just a different system to which one adjusts. Anyway, the really interesting part of this is that Sarah and Bill have actually spent quality time in several different, and quite unique, rooms at the JVLMA.
When Sarah and Bill are finished, they come home and Bill takes Leah to run errands!
Leah has really begun to love elevators. Since we don't have a lot of those in Maryville, the world is her oyster!
We're having some fun with this...
Leah's class back in Maryville has been doing a "Healthy Foods" unit, so Niki and the little ladies made-up a board game called "Eat Right" that looks like this:
From the Fulbright side of things, Bill has been busy teaching applied lessons to the trumpet students at the Jāzepa Vītola Latvijas Mūzikas akadēmijas. He also teaches trumpet players and co-coaches (with Janis Retenais) an excellent brass quintet from the Jāzepa Mediņa Mūzikas Skolas. He continues as the flugelhorn player in the Latvian Brass Band and is playing in the J.V.L.M.A. Symphony Orchestra for 4 performances of Pictures at an Exhibition this week. Schmuyle...every trumpet player's favorite muted piccolo trumpet excerpt!
Latvia Fulbrighters "Night on the Town!"
(left to right - Irene Geisler, Gabriel Burkett, William Richardson, Leah Richardson, Thomas Rotnem, Sarah Richardson, Niki Richardson, Michael Dozler, and Ardyth Sohn)
Bill's primary contact at the J.V.L.M.A. is brass coordinator and tuba/euphonium teacher Janis Retenais. In addition to Bill's teaching duties, Janis has kept him busy with adjudicating responsibilities. Last Wednesday was the first "Youth Music Competition" on which Bill served as a member of the official jury. These events are kind of like "Solo and Ensemble Contest" in Missouri, except the players are from a greater age range (probably ages 9-17 or so), play 2-3 memorized solos with piano, and perform in a larger room (often on a stage). The jury this last week had four members, and they heard 16 saxophone players and 15 brass players. If he didn't get it right the first time, Bill is scheduled to serve as an official adjudicator for six more of these events, taking him outside of Riga to see how music schools operate in places other than "the big city." Hmm..."Rural Music Education in Latvia," - sounds like a Fulbright proposal! I wonder if I know anyone who would be interested in researching along these lines?
Latvia is well-known for its National Opera, which features outstanding opera and ballet productions. We attended our first performance at the opera house this past Wednesday evening for a "children's rock ballet" of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This was a collaborative production between the Rīga Choreography School, the Kristiansund School of Ballet from Norway, Denmark's Emīls Dārziņš School of Music, and the Copenhagen Music College. The hall is amazing, and the performance was excellent!
From a church perspective, we have lots of "needs" including, but not limited to, active youth program, worship in English, etc. We visited St. Saviour's Anglican Church last week (and Bill returned to play there this morning), which is an English-language church in Old Town. We also visited the Riga Reformed Church yesterday afternoon at 4 p.m. While the service was in Latvian, English translation was provided through headsets. We felt really good about it, especially since Sarah and Leah ran-off with the rest of the children for the entire service! We've come a long way, baby. It was a more contemporary style of worship with guitarists and microphoned singing, something that felt familiar. Countryside Christian Church-goers will be pleased to know that "Here I am to Worship" sounds even more beautiful in Latvian! Special thanks to Mission to the World missionaries Becky and Carl Chaplin for informing us about this church...we will be back!
We will admit that living here in Latvia has given us a bit more of a global perspective than we formerly had regarding cooperation and understanding which is, of course, one of the primary reasons for the existence of the Fulbright program. Now we would never encourage anyone to cheer against their own country (unless they wanted to, of course!), but feel free to consider following the Olympic exploits of some Latvian athletes.
Latvians Martins Dukurs (skeleton), Jānis Miņins (bobsled captain), Roberts Rode (men's alpine skiing), the Latvian hockey team, and many others are definitely worth watching!
Our final picture is with Dzemma, the primary daytime security guard in our apartment. She has been very helpful and even knitted wool socks for the girls. A very nice lady...
We've had a LOT happen in the last 2 weeks, so we'll try to fit it all in. Our apartment is newly-refurbished and our landlady has done a fantastic job purchasing items for us. Since we've been here, we have acquired two living room chairs, a desk, a bookshelf, a living room rug, and a ton of appliances and accessories for cooking and everything. We're really pleased with our Latvia home, especially that it's comfortable, safe, and close to the JVLMA. Leah and Sarah have been busy decorating their bedroom with artwork!
As a matter of fact, these pictures were taken about a week ago and there are now so many more colorful drawings and watercolors on the wall that the girls have named it "Pixie Hollow." Here's another from last week:
We had some visitors on January 23-24...Northwest graduate Ben Mendenhall and his friend Meghan Benegar flew to Riga from London, where they have served as interns (he's with Deutsche Bank Group) since August, 2009 and are working on graduate certificates in International Business Practice at St. Mary's University College. Murphy's Law helped them to pick the coldest weekend of the year to visit our fair city, but we had a fantastic time hanging-out.
Ben is a Phi Mu Alpha-Upsilon Chi Chapter alum, and we were the first people "from home" he had seen since August. Once a Sinfonian, Always a Sinfonian...
Whilst showing Meghan and Ben the area around the Freedom Monument, we found the "Lock-Bridge" we had been reading about. In an adjoining park, married couples place padlocks onto this bridge and throw the key in the water as a symbol of their devotion...pretty sweet!
The two above pictures were stolen from Ben's facebook site and the images got a bit fuzzy...sorry.
School officially began at the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music on Monday, January 25, 2010. Bill's started teaching and played flugelhorn with the Latvian Brass Band for their weekly rehearsal. On Wednesday, he met with the extraordinarily helpful folks at the U.S. Embassy here in Riga. Since we're here longer than 90 days, Fulbrighters must apply for a Temporary Residence permit, a procedure that apparently takes quite a bit of paper-pushing. Luckily (for us, at least), the Embassy staff do most of the actual work making things happen! Paperwork is NOT Viljam's strong point, on ANY continent.
Friday, January 29, was quite eventful for the whole family. Bill was invited to participate in a Fulbright M.O.U. signing ceremony at the Latvian Ministry of Education and Science. Here is their web-site: U.S. Embassy in Riga, Latvia. It was fun, but he learned that people walking are supposed to obey traffic signals here. On the way home, Viljams Ricardson received a written warning from a Latvian police officer...we will now wait for the signal to turn green before crossing the street! BTW, some of us seriously considered scanning the official citation to post on this blog, but cooler heads prevailed!
Friday afternoon Bill helped adjudicate the 15th annual Youth Music Competition for young Latvian musicians. He served on the jury with adjudicators from Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia.
Friday night we experienced living history at Riga's Dome Cathedral, a Lutheran church that is almost 800 years old. We weren't able to get a good outdoor picture of this amazing structure, but here is a good starting place: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riga_Cathedral BTW, my apologies to those who don't "like" wikipedia. Believe it or not, the Cathedral and it's enormous pipe organ are amongst the most widely-regarded in all of Europe. Janvaris 29 marked Bill's first performance in Latvia! He performed with the group Brass.lv (Richardson and Guntis Supe on trumpet; Arvydas Valatkjavicus, horn; Rudolfs Kulbergs, trombone; and Kaspars Smits, tuba) and with the JVLMA Organ Professor and Cathedral Concert Organist Talivaldis Deksnis. Niki and the little ladies hiked to Old Town from our apartment for the 7 p.m. performance. It was really a fun experience, with great music, a beautiful medieval cathedral, a communal bathroom, 8-second reverberation, and COMPLETE audience silence (no applause) until the end of the performance. Here are two podcasts from the concert: Contrapunctus I by J. S. Bach - Hallejulah Chorus by G. F. Handel. Here is a picture of the performers in the lobby after the gig:
Sarah and Leah have been busy doing school-work during the weekdays. The remainder of educational materials arrived on Friday the 29th as well, so we're off and running with activities. In addition to school-work, the weather warmed-up enough for us to get outside a bit this weekend. Interestingly, we seem to get more snow when it's +20F than when it's -18F! Go figure...
Anyway, Bill's checking to see whether he can get some video posted soon. We shall see. Until then, Uz redzēšanos!
Well, our little 5 year-old is now a big-girl 6 year-old! We had a ton of fun Saturday, January 16, 2010, visiting LIDO-Centre with our new friend Mike Johnson (an American gentleman who's lived in Latvia for 9 years and runs the Patricia Tourist Office - www.rigalatvia.net). LIDO is by far our favorite restaurant in Riga, and this one featured an ice-skating rink and lots of fun activities for the kiddos. In the following picture, Niki and Bill (on the left) are being tourists and taking a picture of the girls in front of this massive eating establishment.
With the ability to seat 1,000 people, this is supposedly Europe's largest log-cabin structure, and it's made completely out of Latvian timber. As with our first visit to the LIDO restaurant close to our apartment, the food was cheesy, rich, and awesome, making us more appreciative of all the walking we're doing to counter-balance the excessive calorie intake! This was our first experience with public transportation as well; we rode the tram to get there, necessitating our first etalons purchase. Here's a picture of the family bundled-up after a warm meal:
We all enjoyed our trip and made it home in time to have Skype birthday parties with both sets of grandparents and with friends. This was a VERY action-packed day! We bought a beautiful Sokolade Torte from a pastry store nearby for the festivities!
Lots of tasty layers in this cake (which we're told is "par for the course" here), the contents of which elicited mixed reactions from some of those more-picky Richardsons. No worries, however, the chocolate roses on the top went over BIG!
On Friday January 15, we met our friend Irene Geisler (a student Fulbrighter from Western Michigan University researching WW-II history of Latvia) for a lunch-date. Irene was kind enough to check-out our apartment for us this fall. It was exceptionally cold, so we all took a quick walking tour of Old Town and ate lunch at Rozengrals, a medieval candle-lit restaurant that was mentioned in 1293 Riga City Council records as a festival place and wine-vault. Good food and good company...HUZZAH!
Irene also set us up with Latvian language lessons with Liva Kalnina, a law student who goes to school just down the street from our apartment. Liva seemed very nice and we're looking forward to learning how to pronounce these words more correctly (as well as what words to pronounce!).
Other items...the girls have started to sleep through the night in their rooms this week. Bill visited the Central Market today and discovered MAXIMA, a Dollar General-type store that had cheap clothes hangers and other items that seemed way too expensive at the mall (as they are in the U.S. as well...maybe we're not so different after all!). The market environment (inside several buildings that look like airplane hangars, plus the outside tables) is pretty amazing and fast-paced. We think that there are some decent deals, but Bill was moving too fast to catch everything. He met with several of the trumpet students at the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music and will start teaching tomorrow, January 18, a week early. He has been appointed the flugelhorn player in the Latvian Brass Band and will attend his first rehearsal with them on Monday.
We have had a couple of questions about our apartment. The way things are set-up, we actually don't live in a flat overlooking the street, as opposed to the ones you see in this picture. Instead, there is a password-protected gate we enter from the busy sidewalk, then walk through a small courtyard to get to our building. With this arrangement, we really don't hear much street-noise. All-in-all, we certainly can't complain. With the weather, we're looking forward to reaching 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) to do some serious outdoor play with the kiddos.
There are lots of great things happening here. Of course, we keep up with many of you via e-mail and facebook. The plan at this point is to post a blog entry each week...we'll see how long that lasts!
Okay, LOTS to talk about (sorry...about which to talk!). We just dumped pictures onto the computer, so here is a shot of the ladies on one of our plane flights. Sarah and Leah brought their American Girl dolls (Emily and Rebecca) and got to join in watching "Scooby Doo" to help pass the time. The old ones are the best ones!
I had a good meeting with Janis Retenais (tuba teacher and chair of the brass area at JVLMA) and Janis Purins (wind orchestra conducting teacher at JVLMA and a well-known band director in Latvia) on Friday afternoon. They were actually at the airport Thursday to greet us, but a luggage issue made us an hour late and we weren't able to chat. For the Friday meeting, we were able to iron-out a few details about my teaching assignment and other musical things. While at the JVLMA I met Rector Artis Simanis and Vice-Rector for International Relations Maija Sipola. They were very gracious hosts and offered me tickets to the Academy's 90th anniversary concert the next night.
On Saturday we met Ryan Roberts, the Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Embassy here in Riga. He took us to lunch at a restaurant called Lido, which has traditional Latvian food, cafeteria-style. Everybody liked it, and that's saying a LOT!
Saturday night I went to the JVLMA 90th anniversary concert at the "Large Hall" in Old Town, home of the Latvian National Symphony. There were many fine performances from the student choir, orchestra, and brass quintet. Several recent graduates performed as soloists with the orchestra, and it was fantastic.
The above picture is of Niki and the girls (all 4 of them!) in front of the Freedom Monument, one of the more important landmarks in the country. This was taken around 16:00 (4 p.m.) and it was getting quite cold after the 6 blocks or so. I think that we'll be much better at mid/long-distance walking in a couple of weeks!
Right next to the Freedom Monument is the Laima Clock, a common gathering place for people meeting to visit Old Town, and a park with gigantic snowmen. On the way home, we stopped for a quick picture of the Latvian National Opera house, which is a beautiful and massive facility right on the river (and quite close to our home!). Finally, we have some pictures of our apartment, which includes a locked gate, locked main door, security guard, and dozens of other important safety-related elements. We are living in a big city with a population of over 700,000 people after all, so it's good to be careful.
It's official, we made it! The Richardsons are missing 5 pieces of luggage (apparently left in Frankfurt), but those are to be delivered today. Just trying to figure things out and get acclimated. Pictures included in the next post!
The answer is...I'll let you know in a couple of days. We leave from DFW tomorrow and arrive in Riga Thursday afternoon. It sounds like several friends from the JVLMA will be at the airport, as well as some very helpful folks from the U.S. Embassy, complete with a large vehicle for our baggage (boy, do we have baggage!).
We hope to have some pictures in a couple of days. Until then, Uz redzēšanos!
