Jekabs Ozols

Jēkabs Ozols was a Latvian violinist, composer, and conductor who played a pioneering role in the development of Latvian professional music. He discovered his passion for music while attending the Mitau Realschule, where he organized and led a choir. He later studied violin with Karl Rapp before entering the St. Petersburg Conservatory. There, he graduated from the violin class of Pyotr Krasnokutsky in 1889 and the music theory class of Julius Johansen in 1892, while also studying composition under the guidance of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. From 1887 to 1890, he taught violin classes for non-specialists at the conservatory.

Ozols became a significant figure in Latvian musical life upon his return. He performed as a soloist, notably playing Benjamin Godard's violin concerto at the Third Song Festival in 1888. From 1891 to 1899, he served as the kapellmeister of the Riga Latvian Theater and simultaneously conducted the choir of the Riga Latvian Singing Society. In 1894, he organized the first chamber music concert featuring Latvian musicians and, in 1900, conducted the first public performance of the song "Gaismas pils".

As a composer, Ozols is credited with creating the first opera in the Latvian language, the one-act singspiel *Spoku stundā* (In the Ghost Hour), which premiered in 1893. He also composed incidental music for theater productions, such as Aspazija's play *The Witch* (1895). Additionally, he made a foundational contribution to music education by writing the first violin textbook in the Latvian language, *Vijoles skola*, published in 1887.

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