ABOUT ALEKSANDRA LINE
With a higher education in Public Relations and Marketing (BA) and Culture Management (Mg.Art.), Aleksandra Line has always been an active part of the Latvian music industry, especially focussing on jazz music management. Together with other enthusiasts who have education, experience and knowledge of jazz as well as a wish to achieve goals, making long-term investment into Latvian jazz music, she has founded “Wise Music Society”, an association that helps audience to discover new music, promising that it’s WISE or really good, and helps bands to discover new audience. Among some various scale projects an association has implemented, the largest so far have been UNESCO International Jazz Day Latvia (organized every April since 2014) and JAZZin.lv, the only online magazine on Latvian jazz, including an up-to-date event list throughout the country.
Aleksandra has been developing her music management skills, working with both Latvian and foreign musicians, organizing and managing tours, helping with overall management strategy and leading digital management projects. She has worked as a Pashkevich Jazz Club (Riga) general manager, managed Danish jazz double-bassist Kenneth Dahl Knudsen album's digital marketing and presentation tour in the Baltic countries, lead a summer festival in the Berga Bazārs Riga historical quarter, and now is a part of the Latvian Radio multimedia team and under the Latvian Music Management Centre leads representation of Latvian jazz at the largest European jazz gathering jazzahead! in Germany.
Aleksandra Line has been writing poetry in 3 languages – English, Latvian and Russian – since her childhood. Vivid images and vast range of emotions described in her poems and song lyrics help her depict the environment she's spending the most of her time in: exploring other realities, musicians, travels, listening: to the world, herself, the others, and, of course, music.
Aleksandra's original poetry is a part of a spoken word & improvised jazz project “klausies”, with a debut album “17” nominated for the best recording of 2018 in jazz category of the annual Latvian music record award “Zelta Mikrofons” and all-analog recording “9” released in May of 2021 in the vinyl tape format by the Latvian independent jazz and improvised music record label “Jersika Records”.
Besides that, Aleksandra is a guest lecturer at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, teaching a practical course on “Music project management and entrepreneurship” and is also an author of a number of interviews and articles for JAZZin.lv and “Mūzikas Saule” (Music Sun, a printed magazine on Latvian music). She also writes lyrics for a number of original compositions written by Latvian composers, some of them recorded by local and international bands – and she finds this fuse of original music and song lyrics something really special.
ABOUT “KLAUSIES”
“klausies” is a spoken word project with poetry written by Aleksandra Line on top of improvised music composed and played by musicians with rich international experience. The name of the project is a sharp and simple invitation to listen — to poetry, music, stories originally written in English, Russian and Latvian. The project was founded in 2016, and since then sounded in bars, jazz clubs, open-air concerts in culture venues, city squares and manors, international jazz festivals and many more.
In 2018 the project released a debut album called “17” with texts in English, Latvian and Russian (Aleksandra Line – spoken word, Toms Rudzinskis – saxophone, flute, effects, Toms Mikāls – keyboards, effects, Artis Orubs – drums, udu, percussions). “17” was nominated for the annual Latvian music records industry prize “Zelta Mikrofons”.
In 2021 the publishing house “Jersika Records” releases an album called “9” by “klausies”. The album, released both digitally and on vinyl, contains nine stories in English, Latvian and Russian (Aleksandra Line – spoken word, Edgars Cīrulis – Steinway piano, and Glockenspiel, Albert Reinholdt Østergaard – upright bass). The analog recording of the album took place in a concert hall “Latvija” in Ventspils, in an open recording session with live audience present.
“In the 50ies of the 20th century the poets of a beatnik movement found inspiration at New York jazz clubs where leading bebop jazz musicians were playing at that time. In the 60ies poetry evenings became a tradition, where poets were accompanied by jazz musicians, and such performances were also recorded and released on vinyl. It’s great that such collaborations between poets and jazz musicians are happening in Latvia nowadays as well, and we could record and release on vinyl one good example of it»”
These nine compositions speak about each of us being only human — strong and vulnerable, practical and dreamy at the same time, child inside and reliable versatile grown-up on the outside, who tries to create a better world around him instead of searching for one. One of the compositions is included in the “Jazz in Latvia 2021” official compilation.
“Great job of musicians, unique project, nicely performed. Points out next tasks, variants, experiments for the synergy of poetry and music”
“An idea of a trilingual synthesis of jazz and poetry with a wider musical layer was already marked in the debut album “17” three years ago, but “9” seems better polished and, thanks to the vinyl format, a more concentrated performance with a deliberately more limited musical pallette and more powerful poetry”