Artis Sīmanis

Artis Sīmanis graduated the N. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg Conservatoire in 1986, where he studied with Andrei Bolshianow. He holds a Concert Diploma from the Danish Royal Academy of Music, where his professor was Jørgen Bove (1994). In 1995 he received a Master’s degree from Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music. He has further honed his professional skills with Jean-Pierre Baraglioli at the Ecole Nationale de Musique in Paris, Christer Johnsson at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm, Johannes Ernst at the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik, Johann Van Der Linden at the Utrecht School of the Arts in Holland. He has appeared with the Latvian Radio Jazz Orchestra and with Pete Anderson’s rock group Archive and performed as a member of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Riga Festival Orchestra and Moscow Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. As a soloist he has performed with the Latvian Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra and as a guest artist – with the Danish Saxophone Quartet in Italy and Norway. Currently he has an active performance schedule with Kristīne Adamaite (organ) with whom he has recorded four CDs – Cantus Orationis; J.S.Bach / G. Pelēcis Part of Organ Mass with Saxophone Reflections; David’s Songs (with Gunta Gelgote,voice) and Voice of the Plain ( with Jolanta Strikaite-Lapiņa, voice). Besides being the Saxophone class Professor, since 2007 he has been the Rector of Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music.

Artis Sīmanis is the founder of the Riga Saxophone Quartet (1992) as well as the initiator and Artistic Director of the International Saxophone Music Festival Saxophonia. In 2010 he was the recipient of the Order of the Three Stars of the Republic of Latvia for exceptional achievements in popularization of saxophone music. For strengthening cultural ties with France he was awarded with the Order of Arts and Letters by the Republic of France in 2016.