Articles

Valerij Gergijev with Karen Cargill and the London Symphony Orchestra closed the Moravian Autumn in a way which swept aside any doubts concerning the importance of the festival. The concert also showed some niches and particularities in our music life and its place in society today.  more

Leoš Janáček (3. June 185–12.August 1928 Ostrava) awaits his round number anniversary – he will have it in the next Year of Czech Music. The Brno opera deals with it as if unable to sell it to the audience, maybe with disdain, it is hard tell from the outside. The only result is that outside the Janáček Brno festival his work is played seldomly and in poor quality. The warning case was the abhorrently done Cunning Little Vixen as part of the Theatre World festival.  more

The members of the Brno Philharmonic started to appear among the customers of Vaňkovka (Wannieck shopping gallery) yesterday afternoon. They appeared with their instruments dressed casually, in the uniforms of the gallery personnel or as janitors. The unusual performance of Vltava symphonic poem was led by the chief conductor Aleksandar Marković , while Pavel Šporcl accompanied on violin.  more

On Saturday, 18 May, the Philharmonic will for the first time add its Besední dům to the Brno Museum Night. Visitors, for whom the viewing of the foyer with its installed exhibition and information material is not enough, will have the opportunity to take an hour-long guided tour of the palace (from 7:00 p.m. every hour): it will lead across the ceremonial staircase into the large hall (talk about the history of the Besední dům and its current function with a mini concert), then through the office of the chief conductor to the directors' lounge (talk about the Philharmonic and another mini concert) and then to the sound room (an ensemble rehearsal room where visitors will hear a third mini concert and can have their questions answered); when leaving they will once again see the hall from the gallery and pass through the small hall (with a bust of Břetislav Bakala) back into the foyer. A musical performance will be performed in the first half of the evening/night - students and choirs of the Smetanova Art School, and then in the second half by the members of the Philharmonic.  more

If an unknowing foreigner had walked through the centre of Brno at night on Monday, he would have been amazed how lively the city was. A large group of dancing people, who were not led by anyone, radiated the joy of movement and rhythm. Everyone in it was in it for themselves, yet part of a community that came to celebrate the International Day of Dance. It has been celebrated in the world for thirty-one years and it reached us in 2010. This year's part in Brno was initiated and convened by Kateřina Honzírek Hanzlíková, Dash Jiříčková, Jan Ondruška and Michaela Ondrašinová. This included dance improvisation in front of JAMU and in Denisovy sady, dance lessons for children with Kateřina H. Hanzlíková and contemporary dance lessons with Dash Jiříčková in the S lehkou hlavou studio. Probably the most visible part of the celebrations was a dance parade through the city which started at Josefská, circled around the city past the cafés Tungsram and Trojka and through Rašínova they danced all the way to Náměstí Svobody.  more

The construction of the year 2012 was the Theatre at Orlí. Besides the actual award I was pleased that it was included in Stavby občanské vybavenosti (Community Facilities Buildings). Someone would often say that theatres are slowly transferred into the category “repository of inadaptable minorities”.  more

To reflect on the oldest history of music in Brno it is perhaps best to go to Moravské náměstí and look at the well-designed relief of the city, capturing its appearance at the time of the Thirty Years War, or imagine Brno in a bird's eye view. Only a few references and names of Brno artists, which remain necessarily discontinuous, have survived from the Middle Ages; therefore it is better to focus on the then key city institutions and their monuments.  more

When in 1978 the sixty- five years old František Jílek suddenly became the head of the Brno State Philharmonic after the departure of ill Jiří Waldhans, no-one could imagine that under this conductor, non-pompous and rather pragmatic and notoriously famous from opera (a symphonic player is also sensitive to this) – and furthermore at retirement age – the philharmonic would experience the best stage of its existing history. And so it happened – and on one hand it was due to Jílek himself, on the other it was due to the orchestra as well as the chain of historical circumstances; at the moment when František Jílek became the chief conductor of the State Philharmonic, he was the right man, whom the orchestra needed, and on the other hand the philharmonic was the right orchestra for an artist of his calibre and experience.  more

England is rightly a feminine word in Czech. You will definitely not find out anything specific, unambiguous or, God forbid, binding from this well-behaved lady. But do not hold it against her – she doesn't know, she is not sure.  more

A blueberry pie smelled wonderfully on the table. The first piece would have nearly vanished into my gut if it had not been for the heart-breaking exclamation from the kitchen: "We are out of maple syrup!" I did not quite understand why the pie is inedible without this sweet sticky fluid; however, I would have hated to talk back to my host. Therefore, we had no choice but to get in the car and go shopping.  more

I arrived in the Scottish capital smartly equipped with several sweaters. Residents of Edinburgh, who finally got to take out their sleeveless shirts from the dressers after the whole year thanks to the 15°C weather, however, unlike me, believed that the hot summer was just peaking. They collectively gave in to various, incomprehensibly festive moods. Instead of comfortably sitting down for Sunday lunch, numerous families camping out on the lawns of city parks were joyfully spreading orange marmalade on toast, all sorts of street clowns and jokers were competing for the audience's favour against the ever-present pipers. In short, the Scots started to go wild outside and I was warming myself up in my hotel room by reading the fire regulations wrapped in blankets. "Do not run and do not yell if flames burst out," it said wisely. I decided to oust the blasphemous idea that a fire would be warm at least by the nostalgic memory of hot Spanish nights. Smiling at the idea of how I am forbidding a temperamental southerner from being loud, while her pillow is smouldering with her morning coffee instead of a cigarette, I fell asleep happily, unfortunately, not for long.  more

Last year before Christmas (19 November) it was a hundred and forty years since the birth of Gracian Černušák, today easily forgotten, but in his time he was the most important musical historian, critic, teacher in Brno – as well as an internationally renowned lexicologist, whose legacy quietly and at the same time fully lives as the source of Czech musical historical information. Born in Ptení in Haná, he went through the dramatic first half of the twentieth century as a secondary school teacher, and was exposed to oppression and wrong from the Nazi and Communist authorities; the constant gravitation towards music made him one of the most important musical figures of that time in our country – and especially in Brno.  more

I share a certain desire of adventure with the French. For example, I am burning with curiosity when I order a local delicacy with my "cute" accent, like marinated legs of the queen of murky waters soaked in the tears of a sad fairy (in a low price level Czech restaurant, this dish would probably be called frogs legs with brown sauce), and they, in the presence of a girl born in one of the countries located to the right of Paris, allegedly inhaling a certain whiff of the exciting eastern atmosphere. I will lose some of my reputation of a woman of steel by claiming that in my country I do not fall asleep to the sound of machine guns and do not drink a litre of vodka a day, however, as soon as my friends find out that the bottle of Bordeaux is empty due to me, I will fix my reputation a little bit. Conversation intertwined with various cheerful board games, such as secret removal of chips from the plate continues in French until I mix up a preposition or gender. Afterwards the native speakers indulgently switch to English, the mutilation of which certainly does not bother them.  more

Even seemingly stoic Swedes like to have fun. My arrival in Stockholm was reminiscent of a field game that children at scout camps cannot wait for every year. Since I have never experienced a stay in this holiday facility, please, consider the similarity between carrying a 30 kg suitcase and completing the following instructions written by the host on a piece of graph paper, only as my illustrations. "Enter the building through one of the glass doors." (God knows which one, they were all locked.) "Unlock the gatehouse with the fifth key from the right. It is hanging on the hook at the height of your eyes. The keys to the apartment are in the envelope which is in one of the drawers. You will get the code to the front door easily, deduct three from F and multiply the result by the total number of windows." Eventually, I completed the test of independence and overall ability to solve the most common life situations to the level of tasks worthy of the Fort Boyard competition and I found myself in an apartment full of that strange milky light of a Northern night. However, I gushed over this natural phenomenon only until I realised that if I do not manage to fall asleep between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m., when the milk turned into something resembling coffee milk in the school cafeteria, sleep will definitely never come because the use of curtains is the same sin for residents of these regions as painting a moustache on the Mona Lisa.  more

Brno, the city of music in history and in stories – second sequel of Jiří Beneš’ series.  more