Crossroads. Beginning

This October, a new chamber music ensemble, the reed quintet Crossroads, will make its debut with concerts in Riga, Ventspils, and Īle. With its first concert program, “Crossroads. Beginning,” the ensemble presents itself as a versatile wind ensemble that aims to bring a breath of fresh air to Latvia's concert life by performing works by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg and two American composers, George Gershwin and Marc Mellits. The program combines pieces beloved and well known to listeners with unheard musical currents from America, allowing the ensemble to offer a colorful and exciting musical performance.

The reed quintet is a chamber music ensemble that emerged in the 1980s in the Netherlands as an alternative to the traditional woodwind quintet. It consists of clarinet, oboe, saxophone, bassoon, and bass clarinet, united by the common element of a cane reed used to produce sound on the instrument. The Crossroads quintet was created with the aim of introducing audiences to this new type of chamber ensemble and bringing diversity to Latvia's cultural scene.

The musicians of Crossroads are:

Madara Eleonora Mežale, bass clarinet

Līva Juruša, clarinet

Patrīcija Bloma, saxophone

Pauls Reinis, oboe

Edgars Karpenskis-Allažs, bassoon.