Latvian organist Iveta Apkalna has served as the titular organist of the Klais organ at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany, since 2017. In fact, at the January 2017 opening of the hall, she took part in two world premieres, works by Wolfgang Rihm and Jörg Widmann. As an internationally renowned organist, Apkalna regularly inaugurates new concert organs, and she has received countless honours, including the title of “Best Performing Artist” award at the 2005 ECHO Klassik.
Iveta Apkalna: Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, “Light & Dark”
Soviet Latvia
Iveta Apkalna
Born on 30 November 1976 in Rēzekne, Latvia, Iveta Apkalna started to take lessons at her local music school at the age of 5. She was equally fascinated by all instruments, trying her hands at the piano and flute, and also the cello and the violin. Her mother owned a large record collection, and among them was the complete collection of “Historic Latvian Organs.” However, growing up in Rēzekne, around 250 kilometres south-east of Riga, organs were “for special moments, only for special people, only for special places.”
The cathedral in Riga houses one of the best organs in the world, an 1883 E.F. Walcker & Co. with 124 stops, 4 manuals and pedals. People from all over the Soviet Union and Latvia were able to listen to concerts there. In Soviet Latvia, however, the cathedral was used only as a concert hall, but concerts were actually rare events. As Apkalna related in an interview, “So rare, in fact, that an image arose in the girl’s mind that has stuck with her to this day; the organ was like a king that I couldn’t easily visit or experience.”
Ēriks Ešenvalds: Voice of the Ocean (Iveta Apkalna, organ; Stavanger Symphony Orchestra; Andris Poga, cond.)
Latvian Independence
Intuitively, Apkalna knew that she wanted to become an organist, and as she explained, “the closed doors could not stop me.” Being at the right place at the right time, Apkalna witnessed Latvian independence in the early 1990s. All the churches suddenly opened, and Latvia’s first organ class was established in her small hometown. “I was literally the first organ student in a newly independent Latvia,” she recalled in an interview with Ulrike Thiele.
With plenty of support from her family, Apkalna began her studies in piano and organ at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music. Previously, it had been impossible to study two instruments simultaneously at the Academy, but nothing could stand in her way. As she remembered, “I was always very disciplined and very accurate. I was able to do everything I was told very quickly. Of course, that makes every teacher happy.”
Iveta Apkalna Performs Bach’s Concerto in A minor, BWV 593
Advanced Studies
Apkalna remembers that she always had wonderful teachers, and she specifically recalls a piano lesson in Riga when her teacher told her, “Iveta, forget everything I’ve just said. Just take a risk! Just throw up your hand, and it will land where it needs to land.” As Apkalna related to Ulrike Thiele, “Little by little, I was able to accept it, and I still take risks on the stage of my concerts today.”
She graduated on both instruments with distinction in 1999 and subsequently continued her piano studies at the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama. By 2003, Apkalna had completed a three-year study in the organ soloist class of Ludger Lohmann at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart.
Philip Glass: Mad Rush (Iveta Apkalna, organ)
Queen of Instruments
In quick succession, Apkalna won a number of Organ Competitions, started performing in major venues across the world, and compiled an extensive discography. She spends more nights in hotels each year than in her actual home, always accompanied by roughly eleven pairs of dedicated organ shoes. A shoemaker in Latvia is responsible for Apkalna’s footwear, which includes some eye-catching models in silver and gold.
Above all, Apkalna wants to enthuse concert audiences and lovers of classical music for the organ. The so-called queen of all instruments is still considered less glamorous than the piano or the violin. As Apkalna explains, “The organ is a wonderful speciality in the wide world of music. No other instrument confronts you with such challenges. It demands strength and the use of your whole body…the organist is actually a conductor, coordinating many timbres and things.”
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