Community - Culture

Culture

Liepaja is often called the capital of Latvian rock music. Many famous composers and bands have been inspired by Liepaja. In the very heart of Liepaja you can find the 1^st Latvian Rock Café where these stars have left their souvenirs.

Nowadays Liepaja is famous also for its annual international music festivals:

Piano Stars Festival in March
Jazz music festival "Aile Jazz" in April
Baltic Beach Party in July
Organ Music Festival in September

Amber of Liepaja is the oldest of these festivals (since 1964), but concerts of Organ Music Festival are played on the world’s largest unreconstructed mechanic organ located in Liepaja Holy Trinity Church. This year the organ of Holy Trinity Church will celebrate its 122 anniversary.

Liepaja has long theatre traditions and the current theatre is playing its 101^th season. In recent years the spectators could enjoy plays of both local and foreign authors, as well as rock operas. The students of local theatre studio add new trends to the repertoire of theatre.

Liepaja is the only city in Latvia having a municipal symphony orchestra. Liepaja Symphony Orchestra is highly acclaimed and plays together with world-famous musicians like Robert Wells.

Musicians are not the only ones inspired by the sea – every year local artists organise a plein-air The City and the Sea. Another plein-air is organised by sculptors creating environmental art – they use dead-wood to create benches, trash bins and other objects for the local parks and the beach.