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INDRA RISE (born 1961) is a composer whose creative work reflects the musical and cultural ties, the mutual influences and the fruitful co-operation between two small European countries, Latvia and Denmark.

After graduating from the Jazeps Vitols Latvian Conservatory as a pianist in 1985, Indra Rise starts concentrating her attention on composing. The first significant work for the piano appeared when she was 24. Indra Rise is incessantly urged by the aspiration to search for change and improvement. She lives to experience transformations.

Metamorphoses was the name of Indra Rise’s first orchestral work released as the second round of her studies at the Latvian Conservatory, this time under the guidance of composer Peteris Plakidis, was completed in 1990. Since then her appearances as concert pianist grew less frequent. There is more space for creative work.

In 1993 Indra Rise won the scholarship of the Danish Ministry of Culture and went to Copenhagen to improve her composing skills with Niels Rosing – Schow at the Royal Danish Music Academy. She was guided to Electro – acoustic composing by Ivar Frounberg and became the first woman in Denmark who has graduated from a complete course of composing.

The CNMAT Summer Workshop in New Technologies for Music Performance and Composition, University of California, USA, was one more essential contribution to her education.

In 1999 Indra Rise was a student at Summer Academy of IRCAM in Paris.

The audiences in Latvia perceive the evolution of her style mainly as a result of influences from musical cultures abroad.

On the other hand, the Danish, Russian, Swedish, American, German, Austrian, Italian, British audiences who have experienced the performances of Indra Rise’s music note such features as a peculiar Northern raggedness, laconic and unostentatious expression, a singular quality of intonation which are commonly understood as peculiarities of Latvian origin.

The composer finds herself somewhere between those extremes, surrendering to the open winds of the world and at the same time clinging to the roots of her native land with a peasant-like stubbornness, sticking to spiritual values inherited through the centuries, feeling the robust tenderness of her native country.

Chamber music prevails in Indra Rise’s creative work. She has always given preference to individualized, personal sounds of a single instrument or just a few instruments, striving to contain her feelings within the voices of nature, and the poetic images so characteristic of the Latvian art, poetry and music. Whatever Indra Rise’s musical language may seem: a bit harsh, meditative, reluctant, full of anguish or lyrical and beautiful, she always convinces that her feelings are genuine. Without attempting to be sophisticated, without pretending to belong to avant-garde. No trace of void utterance, misguiding pathos, or unjustified technicality can be found in her works.

Indra Rise composes electronic music as well but, like her chamber music, it is pervaded with personal quality and intimacy. Allusions to childhood and fairy tales are always important to the composer: being childish means for her being emotionally genuine and wise. Indra Rise defines music as a means of communication. A natural and accurate musical language is a chance to address the listener in a direct and efficient way.