Sing with the Archives

15.02.2019

On 15th of February the Archives of Latvian Folklore launches a creative crowdsourcing campaign "Sing with the Archives". Its aim is to popularize the archival sound recordings and explore contemporary interpretations of traditional music. The digital platform http://dziedi.garamantas.lv invites to listen to the archival songs, to add their cover versions to the old recordings and to vote for the new versions.

How did traditional music sound long ago and how does it sound today? The project invites you to learn some new songs from the Digital Archives of Latvian Folklore and sing, record, arrange, compose, and upload your own 'cover versions' to the Archive's audio collection. The selection of recordings complied for this campaign includes a rich variety of songs in terms of content, style, origin, and language – everyday songs and mythological songs, joyful songs and sorrowful songs, folk songs and popular songs in Latvian, Livonian, Belarussian, Russian, and Romani. All regions of Latvia, as well as Latvian villages in Siberia and Bashkiria are represented in the selection. The oldest recordings were made in the 1920s and 30s, and the newest are from the beginning of the 21st century.

The crowdsourcing campaign is organized within the framework of the project "Empowering knowledge society: interdisciplinary perspectives on public involvement in the production of digital cultural heritage" (Project No.: 1.1.1.1/16/A/040).