Concert – Monastery Stories

The concert-narrative will center on historian Andris Levāns’ account of the monastery and its inhabitants, medieval chants performed by Schola Cantorum Vox Iubilantis (artistic director Laine Tabora), and a contemporary soundscape by Andreas Theobald. Director Anna Viduleja will bring these elements together in a unified spatial and dramaturgical concept.

The idea for this concert narrative arose while Dr. art. Laine Tabora – a musician, early music researcher and performer – was working with the 15th-century prayer books of the Cistercian nuns of Riga. The liturgical texts and musical material preserved in these books have become the foundation for a series of concert narratives in which the history of the monastery comes to life through music, storytelling, and artistic interpretation, reaching a wider audience for the first time.

The role of narrator in the concert will be taken on by historian and University of Latvia Associate Professor Dr. hist. Andris Levāns. Drawing on narratives written by the Riga Jesuits and other historical sources, he will explore the daily lives of the nuns, their spiritual quests, and the choices shaped by their era and life within the monastery. “This historical source material is authentic in nature, allowing today’s audience to closely perceive and emotionally experience the despair and persistent quests of this spiritual community of women,” notes Andris Levāns.

In this first concert-narrative, historical accounts will be interwoven with excerpts from a reconstructed Visitation of the Blessed Holy Mary – a medieval liturgical repertoire unique to Riga, preserved in local sources, including manuscripts from the Cistercian monastery and the Riga Breviary printed in 1513.

The medieval chants will be performed by the professional women’s vocal ensemble Schola Cantorum Vox Iubilantis, whose female voices will allow this repertoire to once again approach the sound that once filled the prayer life of the Cistercian sisters.

Admission to the event is by donation to the church.