Events and things of the heart. Opening party of «Biedrība» club

«Biedrība» fellowship opens a club in a fellowship house — a place that wants to surround people with culture

At the beginning of September, the basement of the Riga Latvian Society house opened its doors, demonstrating a new club — «Biedrība». They didn’t do a massive media campaign but prepared a huge entertainment assortment for the night. Even though the official opening party took place in September, the club has been open for a while now and hosted a lot of fine concerts by Latvian musicians, and even quite a few jazz concerts were amongst them. It has to be said that almost a hundred percent of musicians considered the sound equipment in the club outstanding. Thus we have decided to pay them a visit and to see by ourselves.

The entrance to the club is decorated with balloons, and Friday’s listeners are met with a brass band, «Pagrabs Brass», that gives potential listeners a taste of what might await them inside if they decide to step in. But also, those listeners knew where they were going, even though they had no notion of what kind of entertainment was going to enrich their evening. Upon entering, we were met by the host of the evening, Mārtiņš Kozlovskis, aka Koznens, in a small space between the bar and the board games. In a joyful manner, he introduced the audience to the performers that came to celebrate this grand opening — the «Vocalica» vocal group, tap dance collective «Soul Tap», Pēteris Narubins, «Xylem Trio», and others. «The legal status of this club is an association or fellowship. Our main focus is the quality of the events we host and our creative team; we feel that sour listeners will, in time, also become a part of this team, will pitch in ideas, help out in events, and support us — that is how a fellowship usually is being created» says one of the clubs’ founders Mārtiņš Strelēvics.

Co-founder Andris Konters, as he says himself, does everything that has to do with bringing to life some pretty crazy ideas in the club: «Each of us is a professional in what he does. Mārtiņš is a professional sound engineer; currently, he is also learning to work with lights and video. Baiba is a professional barmaid; I call myself a builder — right now, a lot has been done in «Biedrībā», but it’s not enough to say that we are ready in the decore sense. I also am a leader; I act as a CEO — I have always had the ability to lead, to solve problems; I’m a locomotive that drags everything forward. My heart things have to do with an emotional and spiritual plane; every one of us has lived through moments of desperation, but now we have found our place».

Andris himself is also a singer, and he has been a member of various choirs, such as «Gaudeamus» — has been touring, dreamed of becoming an opera singer, and helped to build the «Wiktorija» culture house in Liepājā. He is happy that it will be possible to do musical and theatrical shows in the club and calls arts an environment where you can learn to be wiser and be in harmony with the universe. Jazz music takes up to 30-40% of the «Biedrība» club’s repertoire; the program offers Open Mics, theater shows, events of other genres, and collaborations with music schools and the Academy of Music. The club isn’t focused on publicity much right now, says Andris; the club does more action than talking, but what the club does, is done with a dedication of 100%: «I think this might be a test of sorts — there are some emotional turmoils, but we have to learn from them».

With Pat Matheny in the background, the club empty, and the stage all lit up, Mārtiņš Strelēvics goes a bit deeper into how a trio of enthusiasts decided to open the club.

The club’s opening event is quite grand — two whole days in a row!

Yes, these two days were phenomenal! Now, all we have to do is continue moving forward! The repertoire that you could hear during the opening — we didn’t plan that; we just let it happen.

But you have already been organizing concerts all throughout the summer, right?

Yes, we’ve been organizing concerts since June 1st, but that came more out of desperation; we had a different strategy in the beginning, but, as usual, things started rolling… All the contracts were signed, and the bar had to start working. We didn’t really have the time to start sending out letters to event agencies to host private events, which would be a wonderful source of income for us.

Well, yes, it’s never easy at the start. But, if we started talking about the beginnings — who came up with the idea to open a club? It’s not an easy thing to do in Latvia.

Well, yes… In truth, I had this dream for a while, but only in my mind. I wished to have my own space, to do my job how I want to, to work with the music I like, to do what I deem suitable and use the gear I think best, to purchase what I think is necessary, and to do enough research… The equipment we have here is what I’ve been collecting for years; that’s another proof of the fact that I have been dreaming of a place of my one for a while now. Even while working in the Doll Theater almost 20 years ago. Already then, I’ve seen things I would have done differently. When you’re swallowed up in the mundane, tour festivals and see what people have «there», you can’t help but start dreaming. It’s a level of fantasy and a very faraway future. But I hadn’t stopped working in my field; this summer, I spent a lot of time working with private theaters and went to different parties — we worked on weddings, funerals, «fun guaranteed»! [laugs] At one point, I got fed up with everything, the pandemic started, and all in all, the mood was pretty awful. Then Andris appeared out of nowhere with his psychological teacher’s ways, and we started moving. It’s not in my nature to initiate things; Andris was this inspirator, the energy «boost» that I’m always missing, a source of bravery. He was constantly pushing me to call the Fellowship. And then I heard that the Doll Theater has been occupying one of the rooms in the same building, so if they can afford it, then we also can! So I came to look at this space, found them perfect, called Marija Keslere-Salma, signed the papers, and here we are!

You are three co-founders, correct?

We are more than that now! Since we’re not an Ltd and we can’t officially provide a job description, we base everything on our personal initiatives. I’m knee-deep in it, Andris is knee-deep in it, Baiba is knee-deep in all things bar, and Inese Bērziņa is also completely in it! How she manages to find artists for us is simply outstanding! Others also help out as much as they can; since they have regular jobs, they have only as much time as these jobs allow. So yes, we are more than three now; we are close to ten people now. But the core members are four, sometimes six people.

So, all of you are ideologists?

Yes. This endeavor is based solely on enthusiasm, and our fellowship is 100% democratic at its core; the CEO isn’t an owner that collects money to buy himself a yacht in the Mediterranean. The CEO can be outvoted at any time.

So it looks like you are a fellowship occupying the space in a fellowship’s house? [laughs]

Exactly! We wanted this wordplay because regular people usually call this «Riga Latvian Society House», a fellowship or a society. We wanted this people’s name to take as our own, thinking that we are a fellowship legally and we wanted to register it with the same name, but we were told that it’s not really possible. [laughs] So, shrugging our shoulders, we simply translated it to Latin (It was Andris’s idea, a genius thought). So now we are a fellowship called «Societatis», which still means that we are a fellowship, we occupy the space in a fellowship’s house, and we opened a club named «A fellowship»! [AN «Biedrība» in Latvian means «Fellowship», «Society», «Association», which is also used as a term for a registered business]

We have initiated a collaboration with various educational institutions — we involve young professionals in musical activities, giving them a taste of real life and a place to practice their skills. We collaborate with the Academy of Music, Riga Dome Choir Schoo, Jāzeps Mediņš music school, whichever school teaches music. Then we are also working on establishing a connection with the Academy of Arts. There are awesome media schools and colleges where they teach young professionals — filmmakers, photographers, designers, etc.

Culture Academy and actors as well?

Precisely! We are planning on opening this theatrical line as well; right now, it looks like the Russian wave will reach us faster — Aleksejs Korgins from Chekhov theater, who has been an actor there for 13 years already, is planning to open a studio, he already has his own LTD, so we’re working on it. Some Latvian plays have also been played here — a work by Andris Bulis in collaboration with Gaļina Poļiščuka. There are a lot of projects that don’t have a place of their own — well, we’ve got some space!

It looks as if you are aiming to create a home for all kinds of art.

That’s right! Of course, we apply our personal quality control filter; we want to stick with the format which states that it’s anything that can attract intelligent audiences. We want to be educational; you see, culture is a contagious thing. We had some beautiful experiences with JVLMA, and we were a little stressed about the performers being in their first year only — they just met, and they come from different places and backgrounds. Will they know how to behave? But it’s clear that musicians are intelligent people because they managed to get accepted into the academy, it tells you something about a person. But there could be exceptions, right? We had a small incident, but it was resolved so politely that… I think that it’s this effect of the crowd that serves as a good example — people tend to follow the majority. So yes, we want to contaminate people with culture and spread it!

Do you think that art could save the world?

Art has great potential; it could do it. Anything that is able to evoke some emotional response from the masses can do it. I have been invited to work on projects that didn’t have this deep meaning, and in time I get tired of participating in something of no value. I want away from that, from this pointless culture that had sucked me in at some point.

Empty art.

Something like that doesn’t make a person brighter; it doesn’t stil up any spiritual reflections. I think that art should have meaning; it can’t be empty.