Although my trip to Italy has ended a long time ago, I still have a huge amount of pictures left and I really want to share them. What makes it even more hilarious, I already managed to go to Erasmus for the second time, come back and graduate from my Master studies. So now I’m determined to finally share everything that is left of my Italian pictures and start sharing my second Erasmus experience!

A little bit about the topic… Well, I like cars! In particular – vintage ones, and Italy was full of them. I swear, every day was like a constant trip to the past and I suppose that it is one of those things that make Italy so charming. Maybe I’m biased, or just so in love with that country, but it is truly amazing. I can’t possibly imagine myself driving one of those cars, or even drive in Italy, because they have their own rhythm and character which is pretty far from my semi northern mentality, but observing was exciting enough!

Here’s a little collection of cars I met while being in Rome and Naples! Yummy!

Recently I have participated in a very special concert, a tribute to Nic Gotham. Do you know, who he was? Well, let me tell you. Nic Gotham was an amazing man, musician, composer and one of the most inspiring teachers I have ever met. He was also one of the people that started jazz education in Latvia. I’ve heard multiple stories of him teaching jazz improvisation in some city with the population of 100k, of him performing in tiny cafes or big concert halls (have been to several concerts myself), changing the method of teaching solfeggio in the Academy of music, the list of what he did is endless. Unfortunately his life ended way before it was supposed to. After his death an Award has been funded. Every year either a student of a Composition class, or a student of the Jazz department, receives this award along with a scholarship. So a couple of years ago I was one of those, who received this Award, which made me incredibly happy and honored. Now this year there was a concert dedicated to Nic, every single student that received his award has participated and in the end it was splendid. The concert hall was full and the program varied from classical music to jazz, it ended with happy tears both from listeners to performers. And honestly? I was so happy to be a part of it, so I’m sharing a couple of pictures from this event made by one and only Vadim Kozhin!

Enjoy! 

Recently I decided that my life isn’t interesting enough and got involved in an interesting adventure — writing lyrics for a jazz tune!

Here’s the story: during my masters studies I had to prepare a 40-minute long program, I thought — well, it’s a new era of me becoming a cool jazz cat, why not make a tribute to someone really awesome, like, for example, Wayne Shorter?  So it was decided, a tribute to Wayne Shorter it is! But here’s the deal, not all tunes I had chosen had lyrics, that’s when I decided that I just had to make it all with actual words, instead of singing shubadubidah in one of the tunes. As you can guess from the title of this post — the tune was «Lester Left Town».

Here’s a tiny demo of the tune with the brand new lyrics and the story about how I did it

So, here’s the fourth part of my Torino story! The first was about the Museum of Cars, the second about Sheila Jordan, the third about how I accidently injured myself and spent tons of hours experiencing Italian medical system in action! But this one, the last part, will be about what I managed to see and experience before my adventures started.

Torino is a wonderful city, my first impressions were so messed up, that I couldn’t even describe what I thought about it, but now, looking back on all the pictures I’d taken, flashes of memories are coming back, and the first thing that comes after «amazing» is, in fact, «right». I mean, the city is geometrically mmm… correct? It’s like people actually took some time to think about the convenience first, and then decided to decorate. And in fact, it wasn’t so complicated, since every time you’re on a crossroads you can see a wonderful view on the mountains.

Everyone seems to be doing their New Years resolutions, so here’s mine – I hope to go to Italy again. It’s been 2 years since I am back home and I miss it a lot, I miss the people, the language, the view, the music. That’s why I’m proud to present my last recording in 2015 – a song by Bruno Martino and Bruno Brighetti “Estate”, recorded at home with one very nice guy – bass player Andrej.

Happy New Year to all of those who’s reading and (hopefully) enjoying my blog! This is our gift to you :)