Aira Birziņa

Aira Birziņa has been the conductor of the Riga Cathedral Girls’ Choir TIARA since 2000. She is one of the most outstanding conductors in Latvia who works mostly with female choirs and teaches the choir conducting at the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music. She has been the principal conductor of the famous Latvian female choirs DZINTARS and RASA for many years. Aira Birziņa is also one of the conductors of the Latvian Song and Dance Festival. She leads various workshops, participates in conferences, and works as a jury member at the international choir competitions in Latvia and abroad. She was awarded with the Acknowledgement of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Latvia in 2018, the Order of the Three Stars and the Culture Prize “White Sparrow” of the Riga Municipality in 2015, the Annual Culture Prize of City of Ogre in 2017 and 2018, and the Ministry of Culture’s Prize in Folk Art in 1999.

Aira Birziņa is an energetic and fascinating leader, inspiring her singers always perform at their best. She cherishes the traditions of her teachers, the great Latvian choir conductors Jānis Lindenbergs, Edgars Račevskis, and Imants Kokars, and passes this knowledge to her students at the Academy of Music and the Riga Cathedral Choir School. Under Aira Birziņa’s leadership, the choir TIARA has won several international competitions and prepared many wonderful concert programmes, growing from an ensemble of a few singers to one of the most prominent and most attractive choral collectives on the Latvian concert stage.