The organ, says Iveta Apkalna, is for her a male instrument. Not, as it is always said, "The Queen of Instruments", but "The King". With this statement begins an impressive cinematic portrait of Latvia's best-known organist, broadcast by Arte in 2009.
Iveta Apkalna, born in 1976 in eastern Latvia, is one of the most sought-after organ virtuosos in Europe today. And she is one of the very few women who have managed to play their way to the forefront here. "When I look around in Germany, it is mainly men who sit at the organs. As a student in Stuttgart, I was one of three or four women among about 50 men. But that's OK, she said, because playing the organ is, after all, "physically and mentally hard work."
In Latvia, by contrast, it's mostly women who play the organ. In Latvia, the organist said, women can tackle, "they can paint hallways, wallpaper, they repair cars, the cables of televisions and radios."
And they tame the king, the king of instruments.
Text source and more information about this event: https://www.alteoper.de/de/programm/veranstaltung.php?id=516113325
