Solo Concert by Flamenco Guitarist Andris Kārkliņš

On the evening of Saturday, 21 March this year, we attended a solo concert by Andris Kārkliņš - Latvia's only flamenco guitarist - at the Riga House of Art Workers (www.mdn.lv). Antique stairs led to the third floor, where a small hall hosted a small stage from which flamenco pieces were performed. Remarkably, virtually every seat in the room was taken, though the audience was predominantly older in age.

Onto the stage walked an elderly, grey-haired man with a Spanish guitar, dressed in a poncho-coloured waistcoat with a yellow tie. Age has affected the resonance of his voice, but not the nimbleness of his fingers in the slightest.

Sitting and listening to the rhythms of flamenco and gypsy songs from distant Spain, Colombia, and Morocco, the mind conjured images of sun-baked, arid earth and rich southern red wine. The melodies are threaded through many voices, motifs, a bouquet of sounds and colours. These were certainly not Latvian - simple, clear, and slightly ascetic - songs. The southern colour rang out in the interweaving of guitar strings. I thought that for a Latvian soul on such a grey and damp spring evening, it was almost too rich - that one could initially become bewildered by such a dense bouquet of sound. But when the guitar fell silent, you immediately wanted to listen more and more. Urged on by the audience's applause, the artist had to return to the stage at least three more times after his performance, as everyone was left with a certain taste for more.

But altogether - beautiful and thoroughly enjoyable.

Andris Kārkliņš's biography yields very little - only sparse information can be gleaned from the few interviews he has given. So here is a brief summary, as how could one not be curious about how a Latvian came to have such a Spanish soul.

Andris Kārkliņš was born on 28 January 1942 in Latvia. Then in 1944, together with his parents, he left on one of the last German ships to Germany, where he attended school. Later, like many Latvian emigrants, he moved to America, where he studied history and anthropology. In America he learned Spanish, wrote poetry, and studied Latin American culture.

At the age of 12 he heard flamenco and fell in love with the music. As Kārkliņš himself admits - "after that, all other music sounded like noise to me." He was fascinated by the playing of guitarist Marius Federo.

From 1964 to 1970 he lived in Spain, where he studied at one of Spain's oldest universities - the University of Granada - and learned guitar from several masters. In later years he travelled across Europe, playing in cafes and salons in France, Belgium, and Germany.
Then, as he recounts in an interview, he earned money from construction work in Canada to return to Latvia, and in 1993 bought a house on the Kurzeme seaside in Kaltene, where he has lived to this day.

On Friday and Saturday evenings, flamenco performed live by Andris Kārkliņš can be enjoyed over a meal at the Spanish restaurant "El Primero" (www.elprimero.lv) at Smilšu Street 6 in Old Riga.

I am attaching a few excerpts from this solo concert to listen to -