Here we present the choir participants' music to the first Latvian song festival in America.

Many Latvians were only just starting to get used to their new home in exile. The festival was a natural outgrowth and continuation of the "Song Days" (Dziesmu Dienas) Latvians were already holding while still in the D.P. camps in Europe.

The festival was held May 30th, 1953. Twenty-two choirs and 650 singers participated, with an audience of about 5,000. It was the first such festival held outside Latvia—starting a tradition which lasted throughout the Soviet era, preserving for new generations songs which were banned in their homeland. The festival continues today, bringing together those of Latvian descent from all over the world. The next one will be held in Indianpolis, Indiana, July 4th through the 8th, 2007. (The next festival in Latvia will be held in 2008.)

Use the table of contents to look through the songs ...or simply page through it all, starting at the front cover».

Our apologies for not offering a (high quality) PDF file online—at well over 30 megabytes, it requires too much bandwidth to download.