Marks Opeskins
1953
Conductor, educator
Born on 23 October 1953 in Rīga. Obtained his first professional music education at the Emīls Dārziņš Special Music secondary school, graduating from the choir class (1972).
Continued his studies at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music, in the choir-conducting class of Imants Kokars, but after a year he emigrated to Germany, where he graduated from the piano class in the Faculty of Pedagogy of the Frankfurt School of Music (1977), later supplementing his knowledge in composition and conducting. After completing his studies, began his career as a teacher of piano and music theory at the Frankfurt School of Music and Dr. Hoch’s Conservatory – Music Academy Frankfurt am Main (since 1981).
Working with choirs takes an important place in the musician’s life – when still a student conducted three mixed choirs and one children’s choir, but in 1984 founded Dūdas (Bagpipes) the German-Latvian youth chamber choir, which has achieved significant success in Western Europe and the US. The record of the choir’s concert performance of Lūcija Garūta’s cantata Dievs, Tava zeme deg (God, Your Land is Burning) in the second half of the 1980s has great historical significance. In March 1989, the cantata premieres in Latvia, Opeskins’ choir Dūdas combining with the Latvian choir Līgo led by Karmena Jakovela. This was one of the first times that a choir from Latvia performed with singers from the exiled Latvian community.
In 1990, moved to Neu-Anspach (Germany), where worked as the conductor of the Hochtaunuskreis choir (1990-2004) and as a member of the Choir Board in the Music Department of the Landtag of Hesse. Currently, Opeskins directs the Frankfurt Latvian female choir Silava (from 2014), with which has performed all over the world.
A chief conductor at the XXth All-Latvian Song Festival and at many song festivals and days of song in Latvia, the UK and elsewhere in Europe, as well as in Canada and Australia, artistic director of the Munster World Free Latvian Song and Art Festival (1984, 1987).
