From November 16 to 22, the U.S. film studio Heroic Pictures will record music composed by Lolita Ritmane for the soundtrack of the upcoming feature film The American Miracle, in Riga and Liepāja.
The film’s executive producer and Heroic Pictures COO, Ralfs Augstroze, has engaged the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra for the recording, with Ritmane conducting her own compositions and Māris Sirmais conducting the Latvian State Choir. Recordings will take place at the Great Amber concert hall and Latvian Radio Studio 1.
“It is the fulfillment of a 35-year dream—to record a major film’s symphonic score in Latvia is an indescribable privilege and thrill for me, and to do so specifically in Liepāja is even more personally meaningful,” said Ralfs Augstroze, noting that Liepāja is the city of his mother’s birth and childhood, while his daughter Lija Aleksandra Hanzovska is currently a musician in the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra’s first violin section.
“My mother and her parents fled Latvia during World War II, and now my American-born Latvian daughter and her family live and work in Liepāja, my mother’s birthplace and childhood home. It’s a miracle in itself, reconnecting both ends of the circle after more than 65 years,” Augstroze added.
“I have already collaborated on several important projects with Latvian choirs, orchestras, and musicians,” said Lolita Ritmane. “One of them was my score for the significant Latvian film Blizzard of Souls. It’s a great honor and joy that Ralfs asked me to compose the soundtrack for this new feature film and to record it with some of the world’s best musicians!”
This is not Ritmane’s first collaboration with the Liepāja Symphony Orchestra; in 2009, she arranged and reinterpreted well-known melodies by Raimonds Pauls and other classical composers for singer Linda Leen’s Christmas album Ziemasskaņas.
The American Miracle was filmed in multiple locations across the U.S. and the U.K., depicting the formative years of the United States from the 1750s to 1826. This was a period marked by potential devastating challenges that took unexpectedly positive turns, leading to America’s independence from then-military powerhouse Britain. Most of the U.S. founders saw these successes as miraculous, attributing them to what General and the first U.S. President George Washington referred to as the “divine hand of Providence.”
The film is based on a book of the same name by American bestselling author Michael Medved and will be released next summer, one year ahead of the 250th anniversary of the U.S. in 2026.
“It’s also exciting to work professionally for the first time with Lolita, my acquaintance for several decades. She brings her unique creative musical gifts to this significant film for the U.S. 250th anniversary,” said Augstroze. “Both Lolita and I hope that all these efforts will lead to future collaborations between Hollywood and Latvia’s talented musicians—an interaction I initially hoped to establish 35 years ago. With God’s will, Lolita and I will be the catalysts to make this a reality.”
Joining Augstroze and Ritmane in the recording sessions will be executive producers Douglas Maddox and Timothy Mahoney, who also directed the film, as well as Mahoney’s wife, Jill Mahoney, all of whom will be visiting Latvia for the first time, and Lolita Ritmane’s husband, Mark Mattson, a recording engineer, sound director, and music producer.
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