Publicity image of the work of the Sound Days masterclass leader, sound artist Ioanna Vreme Moser.

From 22 to 26 April 2025, Liepāja will host the 12th International Sound Days Festival - an interdisciplinary event that combines music, visual and sound art in workshops, an exhibition, performances and electronic music concerts. "The aim of Sound Days is to identify and strengthen the sound art and electronic music community in Latvia, to foster international cooperation and growth by highlighting a unique theme and experimental forms of sound creation each year and bringing together both local and international stakeholders in a shared creativity.

The central theme of the 2025 festival is live programming and algorithms in audiovisual art. The festival will include the first algoreive - a live electronic music party - in Latvia. Artists will generate rhythmic electronic music and hypnotic visualisations by writing computer code "live" or in real time. The Algoreiva movement started in the UK in 2012 and has since grown into a global community with events in London, Berlin, New York, Mexico City and elsewhere. Algoreiva's programme in Liepaja is curated by musician, creative programmer and curator Patrick Borgeat (DE), who has organised many live programming events in Germany and elsewhere. "Algorithmic music often takes untamed and exciting musical forms, but algoreiva is particularly exciting because live programming does not rely on safety nets and can be very spontaneous. The evening will start with audiovisual performances and end with dance music, combining media art, electronic music and programming culture in an event with artists from the Baltic States, Spain, Germany and the UK."


Creative programmers Lina Bautista and Sola Sarratea perform at the Algorev in Leipzig. Publicity image


The multifaceted activities of the Sound Days festival will take place at the Art Research Laboratory of RTU Liepaja Academy of Arts (MPLab) and the cultural space "Creative Quarter of Typography": a five-day programme of educational workshops, networking events, several performance programmes, concert evenings and presentations of the workshop results in the form of an audiovisual art exhibition. "The festival is a meeting point for young artists and musicians with established and experienced artists in sound art, electronic music and audiovisual media. This year, the festival's 9 workshops at RTU Liepaja Academy will bring together around 90 art students and interested participants from 6 European countries. A special event for the establishment of a new community will be the first Baltic Live Programming Meeting on 25 April at the Tipografija Creative Quarter in Liepāja," says Krista Dintere, festival producer, sound artist and assistant professor at RTU Liepāja.

Programme of the festival "Sound Days" in Liepāja from 22 to 26 April:

22.–26.04. Creative workshops RTU Liepāja MPLab, Kūrmājas prospekts 13.The workshop leaders are musicians, sound and visual artists and creative programmers from Latvia and Europe. The workshops will explore and learn image and sound creation techniques such as live sound and image programming, data visualisation, algorithmic image, interaction of nature and technology. Participation in the workshops will be free of charge, but places are limited. Biographies of the workshop leaders, descriptions of the workshop content and the application form on the festival website https://sound.mplab.lv/.

25.04. at 14:00 BLCM (Baltic Live Coders Meetup) – Baltic live coding community meeting in the Creative Quarter and online. To apply for the BLCM, please contact the organisers at skana@aste.gallery.

25.04. at 20:00 Algorave Liepāja at the Tipografija creative quarter. Live programming music improvisation performances by linalab (CO/ES), nervousdata (DE), Attrique Orgeat (DE), kurivari (EE/UK), Decomposition Loops (LT), V of Londor (LT), WERR (LT), sofi (LV/FI), Agita Reķe (LV/NL), Šūna2 (LV). Flor de Fuego (AR/DE), Miksulis (LV).

26.04. at 18:00 presentations of the artistic results of the festival workshops in the Tipografija creative quarter – performances and pop-up exhibition. Together with the workshop participants, the workshop leaders Patrick Borgeat (DE), Florencia Alonso (AR/DE), Jasmin Meerhoff (DE), Tata Frenkel (LT), Ioanna Vreme Moser (RO/DE), Lina Bautista (CO/ES), Jan Georg Glöckner (LT/DE), Kaspars Jaudzems (LV) and Rihards Vītols (LV) and Györgyi Rétfalvi (HU/CZ) present the workshop results. 

26.04. at 20.00 festival closing concert in the Tipografija creative quarter. The Sound Days closing concert will bring together artists from Latvia and abroad, combining avant-garde pop, live techno, atmospheric and noise music in a diverse programme. Artists will perform with their own instruments, sensors, loopers and feedback systems, as well as with a variety of forms - audiovisual performances with projections and costumes, or performances in other parts of the space, off stage. The concert will also explore the interests and energy of young artists.
Artists: Eleonora Kampe (LV/EE), Elizabete Balčus (LV), Paula Vītola and Platons Buravickis (LV), Alise Rancāne (LV), Farah Wind (DE), Werr (LT), Ofae (LV), Sabrina (LV), Omiros (LV), Dafelz (LV).

The curator of the concert, artist Paula Vītola, highlights her improvised performance with composer and pianist Platons Buravicki as a surprise for herself and others: 'I will be playing my own synthesizers, which create sounds with modulated light, but Platons will improvise on piano, together creating an unusual, slightly noisy and timbrally coherent sound experience. It will also be fascinating to hear and see the dreamily surreal audiovisual performance of Elizabete Balčus, acclaimed in Latvia and abroad, and the intellectual performance of Alice Rancāne. To get a sense of the computer as a duet partner, Alice Rancāne incorporates real-time training of a machine learning model - the performance gradually turns into a conversation with an unstable system on the verge of crashing."

Tickets for Skaņa dienas events are available at the tickets shop "Biļešu paradīze" and online.

"Sound Days is a great opportunity to combine the useful with the enjoyable, working for a week with renowned artists and broadening your artistic vision. An important value of the event is the sense of community among all involved - participants, workshop leaders and artists, spending time together also outside the classes, making contacts and new friendships," Raivo Mihailovs, a festival visitor, young artist and radio presenter, describes his experience.

"Sound Days" are organised by ASTE. Art, Science, Technology, Education, association "E-Lab, Electronic Art and Media Centre" and RTU Liepaja Academy, with the financial support of Liepaja City Municipality "Culture Authority" and Latvian State Culture Capital Foundation.

A look back at the 2024 Sound Days in pictures.

More information on the festival's website https://sound.mplab.lv/ and by writing to skana@aste.gallery, or by calling the festival's producer Krista Dintera +371 25997662.