Conductor Māris Sirmais obtained a Bachelor’s degree in conducting from the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music where he studied with Ludmila Pismennaja, and a Master’s degree under the guidance of Imants Kokars. He later pursued studies in orchestral conducting at the College of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria, with Professor Martin Zighart.
Māris Sirmais founded the Youth Choir Kamēr… in 1990 and served as the choir’s Artistic Director and Chief Conductor until 2012. In that time, the choir received over one hundred international awards, the most significant being the European Grand Prix for Choral Singing in Gorizia, Italy, in 2004, as well as three championship prizes and gold medals at the World Choir Olympics in Xianmen, China, in 2006. Since 1997, Māris Sirmais has been the Artistic Director of the State Choir LATVIJA, as well as the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the International Sacred Music Festival. Under his guidance, the choir has staged many of the most significant works of the vocal-symphonic repertoire, including Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher (Joan of Arc at the Stake) and La Danse des Morts( Dances of Death) by Arthur Honneger, Britten’s War Requiem, Janaček’s Glagolitic Mass, Styx and Don’t Grieve by Giya Kancheli, Stravinsky’s Les Noces and Oedipus Rex, Tan Dun’s Millennium Symphony, Harmonium by John Adams, and many others.
Māris Sirmais has collaborated with such world-renowned conductors as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Mariss Jansons, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Tõnu Kaljuste, Matthias Jung, Neeme Järvi, Eric Klaas and Andris Nelsons. He appears regularly with the Latvian National Opera Orchestra, Liepāja Symphony Orchestra, Sinfonietta Rīga, Kremerata Baltica, the Moscow Chamber Orchestra Musica Viva, Umeå Symphony Orchestra and Helsinki Strings. He has collaborated with such acclaimed soloists as Maxim Rysanov, Kristīne Blaumane, Egils Siliņš, Aleksandrs Antoņenko, Julius Berger, Gidon Kremer, Nicolas Altstaedt, Douglas Webster, Inese Galante, and others.
With the Youth Choir Kamēr…, Sirmais developed the highly acclaimedWorld Sun Songs project, a collaboration with 17 of the world’s leading composers: John Taverner, Giya Kancheli, Sven-David Sandström, Leonid Desyatnikov, John Luther Adams, Stephen Leek, Dobrinka Tabakova, Hendrik Hofmeyr, Polina Medyulyanova, Alberto Grau, Ko Matsushita, Thierry Pécou, Vytautas Mishkinis, Urmas Sisask, and Bjørn Andor Drageby. He has also worked closely with Arvo Pärt, Rodion Shchedrin, Valentin Silvestrov, Krzysztof Penderecki, Gabriel Jackson and others.
Māris Sirmais has appeared with the State Choir LATVIJA and Youth Choir Kamēr… in many prestigious European festivals, where he also leads masterclasses and workshops. The conductor has participated in the recordings of more than 25 CDs. He has been awarded the Latvian Great Music Award ten times, and has received the annual cultural award of the newspaper Diena on several occasions. Māris Sirmais is an honorary member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and a recipient of the Order of the Three Stars. In 2011, he received the Latvian Music Recording Award for Ēriks Ešenvalds’ CD O Salutaris.
In 2008 Sirmais received the Award of the Cabinet of Ministers for cultural achievements and earned the title of Riga Citizen of the Year for promoting the name of Latvia throughout the world. He is an Associate Professor of Choir Conducting at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, and since 1998 has served as a Chief Conductor of the National Song Festival and the National Student Song Festival. In 2008, Sirmais was the Artistic Director of the Gala Concert of the 24th Latvian National Song Festival.
