Riga - Latvia's ex-president Vaira Vike-Freiberga, nicknamed the "Baltic Iron Lady" during her eight-year term, has released a music album, local media reported on Wednesday.

Vike-Freiberga, the country's first woman president, served from 1999 to 2007.

The CD entitled Vaira's Songs features songs by folk duo Ruta and Valdis Muktupavelis, Vike-Freiberga's husband, Imants, and son, Karlis, as well as her former presidential press secretary Aiva Rozenberga.

"Every person has his or her favorite songs which they sang in childhood, heard at some kind of special occasion in life or created an unforgettable mood and that is why they entered hearts for life," said the ex-president, who is an expert in the Latvian folk songs called dainas.

Born in Riga in 1937, Vike-Freiberga's early life was marred by World War II and the Soviet occupation which forced her family to flee their native Latvia in 1945.

For a while, they lived as refugees in Germany, later moving to Morocco and eventually to Canada where Vike-Freiberga completed university, earning a doctorate in experimental psychology.

She lectured at the University of Montreal from 1965.

Although half a world away, Latvia remained in her heart and a focus for her work, as she lectured on Latvian culture and heritage and sharply criticized the Soviet occupation.

She notably researched the country's folk song tradition, becoming not only a renowned specialist in the genre but also a performer, and recently released a recording.

Vike-Freiberga returned from Canada in 1998, when she was appointed director of a new cultural body, the Latvian Institute.

A year later, she made history by becoming Latvia's first woman president. Though a largely figurehead post, she used it to stamp her vision for the country and help steer the country into the European Union and NATO.

Last December, Vike-Freiberga was appointed vice-president of an EU "reflection group" to consider the long-term future of the 27- nation bloc, which has almost doubled in size since the big bang expansion to ex-communist states in 2004. (dpa)