LUPA – Saulkrasti Jazz Festival

LUPA

The instrumental, electronic and analog modern fusion band “LUPA”, founded in 2016, consists of four of the best Latvian jazz and contemporary music artists: Dāvis Jurka – alto saxophone, “Erica Synths” effects; Ritvars Garoza – synthesizers and “Fender Rhodes”, Valters Sprūdžs – bass; Andris Buiķis – drums, “Tempest” analog drum machine. The band’s debut album “Sequences and Consequences” was nominated for the independent “Austras Balva 2019”, as well as for the annual award for music recordings “Zelta Mikrofons” in the “Best jazz album of the year” category.

“”Sequences and Consequences” is on the same wavelength as other contemporary modern-jazz, soul-jazz, electric-jazz, fusion records around the world,” says Mareks Ameriks, the artistic director of the independent jazz record label “Jersika Records”.

The band’s second full-length music project, the recording of “Koki | Sketches of Trees” also was awarded the annual award for music recordings “Zelta Mikrofons” in the category “Best Jazz Music Album 2022”. The idea and inspiration of the new project are the trees, bushes and forests found in Latvia. Continuing the theme of actions and their consequences started in the debut album “Sequences and Consquences”, composers (and band members) Ritvars Garoza, Valters Spružs and Andris Buiķis become sound dendrologists and study the voices, colors of perennial plants, the harmonious cacophony they create in natural habitats, the movements of their trunks and the play with sunlight and its elements. We, homo latviensis vulgaris, are studying our cooperation with these living organisms, their reaction to our actions. The inner voice of each variety and its place in the hierarchy of the plant world are explored. The music project consists of wordless songs.

The band recently collaborated with legendary Latvian composer and pianist Zigmars Liepiņš in his concert program “Zigmars Liepiņš. Par svarīgo” and the project was nominated for the annual Latvian National media award “Kilograms Kultūras 2022”.