Wiki

“Musicians Society TORNIS” or “TORNIS” was founded in the end of 1998 in Riga, the capital of Latvia. This is a non-profit NGO the main goal of which is to support Latvian unsigned / independent / underground music bands and artists. We are going to reach the aim by organising seminars and courses for artists, advertising all activities and events of independent / underground scene, by supporting the press and publicity for this theme, explanation and propaganda of such kind of art to the public, by obtaining and distributing the information about the activities free-of-charge.
The NGO “TORNIS” was founded on the basis of 8 years long running unofficial / non-registrated society / commune of several Riga’s underground music bands TORNIS or TORNIS rec. TORNIS rec. was is a music label (since 1991 we have produced over than 70 cassettes and cd’s), concert and festival organisation and we were the first Latvian music label who had an Internet homepage (since beginning the of 1996). We have built a record studio and rehearsing place for bands.
Playing and producing music we have experienced really huge obstacles and barriers because of the non-commercial character of our art (not just music, but also live performances, cassettes cover art, ideology, etc.). There are two main reasons:
1. general commercialisation of Latvian culture;
2. the small number of Latvia’s population ( app. 3 mill.), which strictly means that in Latvia there is no future for any non-commercial art without support from outside.
On the base of our experience we decided to establish an officially registrated NGO which could help us and all Latvian independent / underground music scene.