Auli and Tautumeitas

Drum and bagpipe group Auļi and ethno music group Tautumeitas have joined forces to create a unique music album „Lai māsiņa rotājās”. Album’s theme is dedicated to a very important period of person’s life – engagement and wedding. The powerful sounds of Auļi’s bagpipes and drums represent masculinity, whilst Tautumeitas softer sound but still expressive multipart singing represent femininity. Just as newly weds need to learn how to live together after the wedding, Auļi and Tautumeitas search for ways in which to respect and compliment each other on their musical journey.

The bagpipe and drum music group Auļi was founded in 2003 in Riga, Latvia. Despite the fact that there are scarce traces left of bagpipe and drum playing traditions in Latvia, both instruments are frequently mentioned in Latvian folklore materials. Based on their own research and experience, Auļi have developed the perception of Latvian bagpipes – their tunes and possibilities – and combined this sound with the rhythm and beat of different kinds of drums, including one of the biggest tree trunk drums in the Baltics.

Auļi`s repertoire started out with traditional dance and bagpipe melodies including tunes of other European peoples as well as drum pieces. However, they soon developed their own melodies and style, not continuing in the traditional route, but also not following the well-beaten path of the various medieval bagpipe and drum groups known all over Europe.

TAUTUMEITAS started with traditional singing and tried to echo the traditional chanters. The closer they got to songs, the closer the songs got to them, until it seemed natural to intertwine it with everything that they had heard and felt in this world as their own. Now they play folk songs using voices and timbrally appealing instruments to involve in the sound their senses and notions of time and space.