Sacred Music Festival ‘Silver Bells’ Culture news
The beginning of each New Year is the time of new hopes and spiritual search. In Daugavpils it is also special spiritual time, when rejoicing of soul and spirituality takes place in the churches, concert halls and streets of our city in the period between the New Year’ s Day celebration and the Twelfth Day.
The first choir festival in Daugavpils took place in 1999. Choirs from Daugavpils, Riga, Ventspils, Vilnius (Lithuania) participated in the festival. The great interest in this festival shown by the spectators proved its vitality, therefore in 2000, the year of Daugavpils city anniversary the first International Sacred Music Festival ‘Silver Bells’ was organized in Daugavpils. About 20 choirs participated in the first festival.
In the year 2013 the Festival celebrates its tenth anniversary and it has attracted more than two thousand singers from Latvia, Lithuania, the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.
X International Sacred Music Festival ‘Silver Bells’
11 - 13 January 2013, Daugavpils (Latvia)
Festival events schedule
January 10, 2013
18.00 Latvian Cultural Centre (Concert hall) – opening concert of the Festival
January 11, 2013
16.00 Latvian Cultural Centre (the White hall) – press conference
18.00 St. Peter’s church – vesper, concert of the Festival
19.00 Latvian Cultural Centre (Concert hall) – the Opening of the Festival
January 12, 2013
10.00 Latvian Cultural Centre (Concert hall) – competition of choirs and vocal ensembles:
Group B (youth choirs);
Group C (female and male choirs);
Group D (mixed choirs);
Group E (vocal ensembles);
Group F (vocal groups).
January 13, 2013
10.00 Latvian Cultural Centre (Concert hall) – choir competition, Group A (children choirs)
15.00 Latvian Cultural Centre (Concert hall) - Grand Prix competition, awarding of participants, the Closing ceremony of the Festival