Reinis Zariņš is a highly versatile musician with insatiable curiosity, and his constantly expanding repertoire list proves it plenty. When he sculpts a new programme, he searches for a unified theme that gathers all the colourful pieces under its wings.
Pilgrim music
The title Pilgrim music is a working title at the moment, for the lack of a better one. I use it to somehow mark composers who have been and are proactive in their attempts to express the inexpressible, to touch the Mystery, to know God. Some composers have given their whole life to sounding this deepest of all wells, others seem to take that pilgrimage only once in a rare while. I am always looking for such works of music and I build them into programmes, because I, too, seek to touch the same Mystery.
Latvian music
It all began when Pēteris Vasks (pictured) put his hand around my shoulders and in a friendly way posed a very serious question: do you think Latvian music could be part of your repertoire, too? At that moment, I was visiting from Yale, my mind was filled with French avant-garde and American minimalism alongside Beethoven’s Hammerklavier — and Pēteris asks me about Latvian music! Well, today Latvian music is absolutely central to my work, and meanwhile Pēteris has composed a beautiful new piano work on my commission - “Cuckoo’s voice”. You can hear it in my latest album, dedicated to Vasks, and in fact, most of my albums so far have been dedicated to Latvian music. Several of my contemporaries have composed astonishing new works for me to perform, and so Latvian music has quite naturally become another profile for me.