Little did I realise, when invited to a music library workshop in Latvia in July, that I would have the good fortune to participate in an extraordinary celebration. Even less did I expect to find myself not in Riga, but in a hotel close to miles of golden sands in Jurmala, Riga's riviera, which, given the unexpected and untypical heatwave, was extraordinarily fortunate. Equally diverting was the venue for the workshop, a beautifully landscaped gardening college. It was slightly disconcerting that the first Latvian word I needed was "gardening", as if intending to become an expert on Latvian horticulture.

The music library workshop involved 50 delegates from the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) who were meeting for the first time as a discrete group and chose to use whatever languages they had in common, which happily proved to be English and Russian. The enthusiasm of all was exciting, and some of the projects they described were truly stunning, especially a music cataloguing system, designed to be simple for musicians and capable of incorporating scanned title-pages, musical quotations and cast lists. If only we could all do the same.

It was shameful not to be aware in advance of the celebrations which coincided with the visit. Riga was celebrating the 800th anniversary of its foundation. Sunday morning saw a vast procession of choirs and bands from every region of Latvia and all in their local costumes, all singing and all so weighed down by flowers and leaves that I imagined the gardening college and the rest of Latvia utterly depleted of vegetation. The procession lasted for four hours. But that was only the beginning...

At 10pm we drove out of Riga to a boundless choral arena in the woods, where the true celebrations began. The choir was 11,000 (yes, three noughts) strong, the audience probably 30,000. The coordination was impeccable and the whole event stunning and moving. The atmosphere was truly celebratory, the audience knowledgeable and appreciative. Even the two million mosquitos stopped biting. There are regular choral festivals of this size in Riga, but this was a singular event and all the music related to Riga itself in a snapshot of its history and culture. As we left, at around 1.30am, it was impossible not to be feel that one had participated in a very special event.

Pam Thompson