Rihards Zalupe composer

Rihards Zalupe was born in 1983 in Talsi, Latvia. After finishing of his studies with teacher Maris Verinš at Jazeps Medins Secondary Music School in Riga in 2002 he entered Jazeps Vitols Music Academy of Latvia and studied in the class of percussion instruments with associate professor Edgars Saksons. From 2004 to 2005 Rihards Zalupe was a student of percussion instruments under Socrates Erasmus programme at Hochschule fur Musik in Koln.

In 2007 the young musician received a Master’s degree in performance on percussion instruments at Jazeps Vitols Music Academy of Latvia under the guidance of associate professor Edgars Saksons. He learned to play marimba and in parallel – composition with world-famous Ms Keiko Abe - and took part in the International Katarzyna Mycka marimba master classes with such professors as Robert Van Sice, Eric Sammut, Katarzyna Mycka and others.

Since August 2006 R. Zalupe has been working with the National Symphony Orchestra of Latvia as a musician in the group of percussionists. He is also a lecturer at the Music Academy of Latvia.
In parallel with his activities at the LNSO and solo performances he performs with Sinfonietta Riga, Wind Orchestra Riga, Sinfonia Concertante, Vidzeme Chamber Orchesta. The artist closely cooperates with the brothers Raimonds and Oskars Petrauski.

In 2006 R. Zalupe received the annual award of JVLMA and Hansabanka. He was nominated for the Great Music Award 2008 and got the Latvian Annual Award for Recordings 2008.
In the first half of 2008 the artist issued his first CD Marimba Dance with his own compositions for marimba and piano, and choir.

In R. Zalupe’s life an important place is given to composing and arranging of music. His first piece Austrumu fantazija(Eastern fantasy) was written in 2002. To date several compositions for percussion instruments, marimba, piano, orchestra and choir have been written. In 2007 R. Zalupe wrote Koncertino for marimba and orchestra as an obligatory piece for percussion instruments for the contest of Latvian music school performers.
The artist has performed in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Spain.

Beside the academic music Rihards Zalupe has an extensive repertoire of jazz, Latino, pop and rock music. He also performs house music as a percussionist.