2023

The year following the conference, 2024, marks 210 years since the birth of the founder and first director of the seminar, Janis Cimze (1814-1881), which initiated his jubilee events.

Cimze led the Livonian parish school teachers' seminar for a large part of his life, spending the first 10 years in Valmiera (1839 - 1848) and then in Valga (1849 - 1881). In addition to the parish school teacher's qualification, the seminarians received a very good musical education from this school, as Cimze himself was an excellent organist and folk song collector. During its nearly 50 years of operation (1849-1890), Cimze's seminar educated 400 future Latvian and 100 Estonian schoolmasters, sextons, composers, writers, church teachers, social figures, and others.

The significance of the seminar for the development of Estonian and Latvian culture and education from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century is hard to overestimate. Most of the seminar graduates went on to work as local school teachers across Estonia (as well as across Latvia). In addition, many Cimze alumni became well-known choir conductors, composers, writers, social figures, church teachers, pastors, etc., including Carl Robert Jakobson, Ado Grenzstein, Aleksander Eduard Thomson, Joosep Kapp, Friedrich August Saebelmann, Aleksander Kunileid-Saebelmann, Aleksander Läte, Andreas Erlemann, Anton Jürgenstein, and others. These are names that need no further introduction. Cimze alumni contributed significantly to preparing the fertile ground for the independence of Estonia and Latvia at the beginning of the 20th century.

Conference materials are avalable in the Estonian version of the museum website.