On 6 April 1826, Juris Neikens was born at Kānadži in Ārciems parish – a pastor, teacher, and writer later rightly called the father of the Song Festival tradition. He became one of the founders of Latvian prose, led educational and civic work in Vidzeme, and in 1864 organized the first Latvian Singing Festival in Dikļi. From that local gathering of choirs grew a tradition that later became a core element of Latvia’s cultural identity.

Neikens lived during the rise of Latvian national self-awareness in 19th-century Vidzeme, when schools, choirs, periodicals, and literature became tools of social self-organization. The Dikļi Singing Festival showed that the choral movement could become a symbol of community and cultural strength.