From 28–30 October 2025, Denmark’s King Frederik X and Queen Mary conduct a royal visit to Latvia, accompanied by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Troels Lund Poulsen and Minister for Foreign Affairs Lars Løkke Rasmussen and a Danish delegation representing culture, research, and business.

Among them is Katrine Laigaard Baunvig, representing the CRIES project.

CRIES is a transnational research initiative supported by HERA and CHANSE (European Union). The project explores how collective singing emerges and functions in times of crisis and how communities in the Nordic and Baltic regions use song to express solidarity, resilience, and identity.

The royal visit includes several events relevant to CRIES’s field of study:

• Official welcome at the Freedom Monument in Riga, a powerful national symbol and focal point during Latvia’s Singing Revolution.

• Visit to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, highlighting the cultural and historical context in which communal singing became a form of resistance and remembrance.

• Visit the Latvian Academy of Culture, where cultural and research collaborations between Denmark and Latvia are presented - including the  CRIES project, with Latvian Academy of Culture being base for WP3 PI Rūta Muktupāvela. 

Katrine Laigaard Baunvig’s participation underscores the recognition of cultural research as part of Denmark’s international collaboration with the Baltic countries and highlights CRIES’s focus on the cultural role of singing as a collective practice in crisis situations.

Furthermore, this visit provides a visible platform for the project’s central themes:
How shared musical expression strengthens social cohesion, sustains memory, and supports resilience - in the past and in the present.

CRIES continues to develop its partnerships across the Baltic and Nordic countries, examining how singing connects communities across borders, languages, and histories.

For more information on the royal visit: kongehuset.dk – Program for State Visit to Latvia