Guntars Gedulis

1952–2019
Composer, conductor, singer, teacher, public worker

Guntars Georgs Gedulis was born on 27 August 1952 in New York, USA, in the family of former Liepaja residents Visvaldis Gedulis and Gundega Gedule (née Stengrevica (Stengrēvica)). He was first brought into the world of music by his father, the singer Visvaldis Gedulis. At the age of six he began to learn piano and later clarinet which he practised in school orchestras.

He attended the Bronx (later Yonkers) Latvian Evangelical Lutheran elementary school in the New York parish, graduating in 1965, and high school, graduating in 1969. At the same time he also studied composition theory at the Manhattan High School of Music and Art, graduating from the school in 1969. He later continued his musical studies at the City University of New York where he studied conducting and composition with Miriam Gideon and Mario Davidovsky. He graduated in 1974 with a Bachelor's degree in Music and also in Architecture, receiving the LADO Award for excellence in music and a Phi Beta Kappa membership card for outstanding academic achievements. In the field of architecture, he received the prestigious American Institute of Architects Certificate and Medal awarded to the most outstanding student as well as a scholarship for the 1973–1974 academic year.

He started working early. From 1971 to 1975 Gedulis taught music, Latvian language, Latvian geography and other subjects at the New York Latvian School, and in the summers of 1974 and 1976 taught Latvian language courses at Western Michigan University. He began directing choirs and ensembles in 1971 at the New York Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church elementary school in the Bronx. After graduating from university in 1974, he founded and conducted a choir in the New York Latvian youth group “Stops”, was a music director and lecturer at 2x2 camps from 1972 to 1976 and in 1979, and served on the board of the American Latvian Youth Association.

Gedulis moved from the USA to Caracas, Venezuela, in 1975. Within one year, he reorganised the Caracas Latvian school into a primary and secondary school and worked as a teacher and headmaster (1975–1978). Gedulis was also one of the founders of the Venezuelan Latvian Association in 1975 and co-founder and first chairman of the South American Latvian Youth Association (1977–1981). He was also actively involved in Venezuelan cultural life: from 1979 to 1982 he was the permanent conductor of the student choir “Coral Capella” in Caracas, and he founded and managed the choir MINDUR of the Ministry of Planning of Venezuela (1980–1991). In 1987, he founded the Music Society “Gaudeamus” in Venezuela. In Caracas, he organized the annual international choir festival “Canticum Novum” from 1995 and Christmas festival “Canticum Noel” from 1998. Gedulis founded and directed a choir “Lingua nova” in the Central University School of Languages in Venezuela from 1993 to 1995 as well as the choir of the United Christian Church in Caracas (1985–1987). The repertoire of all these choirs included music by Latvian composers. Gedulis was also a chorus master at the Bel Canto Opera Company (1985–1987) and the Teresa Carreño Theatre in Caracas (1993–1994).

While living in Venezuela, he participated in Latvian cultural life elsewhere in the world. Gedulis was the chief conductor in the 1st, 3rd and 5th Latvian Youth Song Festival in Montreal (1975, 1979, 1985) and the 2nd World Free Latvian Song Days in Munster in 1984 as well as the Latvian gatherings in Tobago from 1976, for which he created cultural programmes. In 1989, he took over the leadership of the Latvian gatherings and did so for almost 30 years, until his death. He also secured the participation of the Tobago Assembly (Parliament) in these gatherings, which subsequently organised the so-called Courlander Landing Days. Gedulis also taught music, singing and conducting at the Australian Latvian Summer High School in 1979, 1988, 2005 and 2012, and was a program leader at the first Latvian summer music camps in the Catskill Mountains in the USA in 1983 and 1984.