Contemporary music festival 'Baltic Music Days 2026. We Live In Different Times' begins next week. The topic of the event will echo current reality

The contemporary music festival “Baltic Music Days 2026” begins next week, on April 9. The main theme of this year’s festival reflects nowadays complex reality: it speaks of life in moments of simultaneous uncertainty, changes and awareness – socially, politically, technologically and artistically. During all ten events of the festival the listeners in Riga and Liepāja will hear music that offers not one answer, but many perspectives on what it means to create, listen and live right now.

“We live in different times. These words are an invitation instead of a diagnosis. An invitation to acknowledge that the time we find ourselves in is not simple and not uniform. We live simultaneously in uncertainty and hope, in memory and imagination, between the past that still rings and the future that is already knocking at our door. Each of us has our own time – personal, political, emotional, spiritual. Contemporary music is born in this exact diversity: as art that does not explain time, but allows us to experience it with all our essence instead”, says the festival’s artistic director Krists Auznieks.

Auznieks emphasizes that this festival is a big celebration: 10 events, more than 15 premieres and about 30 works by composers from all over the Baltic and the Nordic countries. In addition, the “Satellite Beyond” meeting of the “Culture Action Europe” initiative will also take place in Riga during the festival week, placing the Baltic Music Days in the broader context of European cultural policy and confirming what is already known: Baltic music is a living and active part of the European cultural space.

The festival “Baltic Music Days 2026. We Live In Different Times” is the central contemporary music event in the Baltic States, annually rotating between Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. This year, the Baltic Music Days begins close cooperation with the Nordic Music Days and the composers' unions of Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Scotland and the Faroe Islands, therefore we will hear the most interesting works of not only Baltic but also Nordic composers, allowing us to appreciate and better understand our closest neighbors.

The festival program:

April 9: Prelude to Different Times. Juventus, Minjona, Dziesmuvara – Riga Central Station

April 10: Kairos/Chronos. Liepāja Symphony Orchestra – “Great Amber” concert hall, Liepāja

April 11: Phantom Streams. Alexander Tillegreen – “Great Amber” concert hall, Liepāja

April 11: Letters to a Young Poet. Latvian Radio Choir – “Great Amber” concert hall, Liepāja

April 12: Turning the Time. Ensemble for New Music Tallinn – “Great Amber” concert hall, Liepāja

April 13: The Arrow of Time. Twenty Fingers Duo – Latvijas Radio 3 “Klasika”, live broadcast

April 14: Active Access: Opening Music-Making Through Technology. Workshop by a Scottish composer Ben Lunn – JVLMA, Riga

April 14: Time to Rise. Qullaq – Ģertrūdes Street Theatre, Riga

April 15: Two Northern Times. Aud the Deep Minded and HAV Duo – Ģertrūdes Street Theatre, Riga

April 16: Timeless Origin. Orchestra Riga – VEF Culture Palace, Riga

April 17: River of Time. Reinis Zariņš – Spīķeri Concert Hall, Riga

Tickets for the festival concerts in Riga and Liepaja are available here: https://www.bilesuparadize.lv/lv/custompage/6008 

The festival is possible thanks to the Latvian State Culture Capital foundation, Riga City Council, Liepāja concert hall “Great Amber”, Liepāja City Municipality, Nordic Music Days, Nordic Culture Fund, Nordic Council of Ministers, Culture Action Europe and Statens Kunstfond; the festival’s informational support is done by Latvijas Radio 3 “Klasika” and shopping centre “Origo”.