In September 2020, Tartu College will celebrate its 50th birthday. Throughout these long years, this building has been home to many Toronto university students as a residence, as well as a home to Estonians, non-Estonians, and guests from near and far.

We are happy to present Winter edition of the Baltic Heritage Network quarterly newsletter. In these pages you will find information about our past and future events, new publications, and what is happening across the globe within the diaspora research and archive communities. 

Music is the foundation of Latvian culture, beginning with folk songs and continuing with symphonies and opera and other forms of musical expression. Latvia, proportionally to its population, has produced a remarkable number of world-renowned musicians. Here I will look at those who arrived in Canada after WWII leaving their un-erasable musical footsteps and at others who followed in those footsteps.

This season marks the ten year anniversary of Baltic Heritage Network young diaspora researchers’ seminars.

The Festival of Exhibits by/of Estonians Abroad which began in Estonian in May 2019 will continue throughout the fall and the first party of 2020. Exhibits by communities of Estonians abroad, Estonian memory institutions or exhibits created as collaborations on topics related to Estonians abroad will be displayed during the festival. 

One of the biggest events for VEMU this year was the second Estonian Music Week, which took place November 14-17. It brought contemporary music stars both from Estonia and Canada to Toronto. This year the programme was geared toward modern classical, tech, pop/jazz, and folk music.

The Lithuanian-Australian newspaper “Mūsų pastogė” informs that last December the Australian Lithuanian Community, Inc. Board of Directors decided to invigorate the Australian Lithuanian Community Archive so that it is the preferred option for people to donate their archive material.

The exhibition “Lithuanians of the World: Uruguay and Argentina” was exhibited in Vilnius Lukiškės Square this fall. It tells the stories of Lithuanians who traveled to South America in the mid-20th century.