ABSTRACT
This chapter elaborates a different picture of the city as it was experienced by some of its residents between the 1880s and 1941, when Nazi occupation brought a quick and violent end to most of its Jewish population. In particular, it suggests that Riga's diverse peoples subsisted and circulated daily within shared social spaces, conditions that gave rise to varieties of experience and cultural expression that were profoundly shaped by encounters with others. To develop this picture, the chapter looks at documents commonly neglected in general histories of the region, including transcriptions of folk songs, concert programmes, and a variety of other sources that provide glimpses into the city's public and private musical life. The chapter considers one such utopian project, the founding of Riga's Jewish People's Conservatory in the winter of 1921. In treating this event, it draws on theoretical work by a number of scholars who describe the performance of music as an enactment of future possibility.
