Articles

While trumpeter Jiří Kotača is known to the Brno jazz audience mainly as the bandmaster of the progressive big band Cotatcha Orchestra, on his first CD he presents himself with a different formation. He had met the Swedish guitarist Alf Carlsson during his studies in the Netherlands, and then they met up again and founded their band during Alf's tourist trip to the Czech Republic. Then they invited two very talented Slovak players to a joint trip for music, drummer Kristián Kuruc and double bass player Peter Korman, who is a member of Kotača's big band. This international formation plays Kotača's and Carlsson's original compositions and gets more or less inspired by Moravian, Slovak and above all Scandinavian folklore. The album was given the name Journeys, because journeys – to music, to knowledge and to the heart of souls – are what the life of not only this band revolves around.  more

Two sold-out concerts launched on Saturday filled-up the hall of the Koruna cinema in Břeclav, where the Národopisný soubor Břeclavan [Břeclavan Ethnographic Ensemble] celebrated its 65th anniversary and joined thus the series of jubilee folklore ensembles this year. The afternoon concert had to be eventually added because of the huge audience acclaim, which only confirms that in South Moravia folklore is still widely known and enjoys unremitting popularity.  more

Yesterday evening at the piazzetta of the Janáček Theatre was marked by a concert to commence the 2019/2020 season of the National Theatre Brno (NdB). Promotion of the event ensured the most important thing for this music evening – hundreds of spectators who filled up the whole place. We should not forget the really wide age range, which is so much needed for future culture, especially at its lower limit (still in strollers).     more

As a UNESCO-listed city of music, Brno has had four festival days full of music and dance. Tens of concerts and performances with hundreds of performers took place at twenty-two music venues. Music in the streets sounded on every corner, but most attention this year was attracted by four rooms by the artist Kateřina Šedá, in which artists of different genres and nationalities took turns. Another attraction was the performances of the British Motionhouse and No Fit State Circus, who repeatedly enchanted the Náměstí Svobody Square with their acrobatic pieces and breathtaking performances. Two large stages were also set up – Dominik Stage on Dominikánské Square and Django Stage on Malinovského Square, on which appeared artists such as Jana Kirschner, Monika Bagárová, minus123minutes or Jan P. Muchow & The Antagonists. Traditionally, the festival was accompanied by the sound of barrel organs whose players met in Brno as part of their 10th international meeting. This year, singer and multi-instrumentalist Tinatin Tsereteli (Hannover) and violinist Nicola Manzan (Bologna) as artists from UNESCO partner cities of music also premiered at the Brno Music Marathon. The atmosphere of the festival is captured in the video below.  more

Folkové prázdniny [Folk Holidays] in Náměšť nad Oslavou is a festival standing out with its dramaturgy, structure and atmosphere. Every season has its own theme, every evening has its own theme, and even some individual performances have their own themes. The long-time programme director Michal Schmidt managed this year to excellently balance Czech premiéres and truly extraordinary projects with reappearances and sure bets. This year's theme of Folkové prázdniny was About the Soul; however, this week-long event has its soul every year.  more

We live in a free democratic society, in which the role of the state is to create the environment and conditions for the development of creativity and creative potential, being aware that today's living art creates cultural heritage for the future.  more

Last weekend, the 74th Strážnice International Folklore Festival 2019 as well as the 37th Strážnice Children's Folklore Festival were held in the South Moravian Mecca of folklore. The biggest folklore festival in the Czech Republic enjoys great interest and it wasn't  any different this year either, despite tropical temperatures, with tens of thousands of people coming back to Strážnice again.  more

In the summer months Špilberk Castle’s courtyard often resounds to the sound of music. Until September it is possible to combine a tour of the castle with a cultural experience. The organizers have tried to prepare a programme across genres that has something for everyone. Yesterday it was the turn of folk music. Despite the adverse weather the stage was dominated by the Military Art Ensemble Ondráš.  more

Why be one of the many average bands when we can be a unique band? The ten-year history of the Brno group Kupodivu could be squeezed into this motto. In 2009, saxophonist Jaroslav Pilný and keyboard player Petr Šašinka first talked about forming a band. In 2019, the band Kupodivu [Surprisingly Enough] is releasing its first full-length album. Exactly in the middle of this ten-year period, in 2014, an important change took place when the original folk band was transformed into an interesting shape with keyboards, saxophone and bass, but without a guitar. The line-up, which resembles rather jazz bands in recent years, has scored at a lot of folk festivals in recent years. Kupodivu won the Porta award for authors, the Rada Notování [Council of Notation] award, won the Moravský vrabec [Moravian Sparrow], and won second place at the Mohelnický dostavník [Mohelnice  Stagecoach]. At all these venues they performed music that rather than campfires fits into city clubs, and by far not only folk ones. The album Živočišné pudy [Animal Instincts] summarizes the band's work so far in a dignified way, underlined by the quality sound from the Zlín Studio V.  more

The title of this album is deceiving. Although the group Šarivary uses the Czech phonetic transcription of the French expressions charivari and mélange, it is not composed of any Czechs. The quartet that got together in Brno is headed by French singer, flutist and accordionist Aude Martin and American guitarist and singer Chris Coleman. Besides them, the band is formed by Swedish trumpeter Christopher Strandh and Slovak bass guitar player Tomáš Ulahel. The band's music is as colourful as its motley ethnic composition.  more

On the last day of May, the Dominikánské Square in Brno came to life with music, singing and dancing. At half past two in the afternoon, the programme of the nationwide happening of primary artistic schools ZUŠ started under the patronage of the Magdalena Kožená Endowment Fund by announcing the results of the "TO JE talent"competition. The participants did not only come to pick up with prizes. Several of the award-winning singers and musicians proved this. For example, Lucie Sedláčková with the song by Ewa Farná Měls mě vůbec rád [Did You Love Me At All?] attracted an ever growing crowd of listeners, while singer and pianist Veronika Vávrová did the same with the ballad Million Reasons by Lady Gaga.  more

A farewell was bidden to a great figure of Moravian culture took place in the Basilica of Old Brno on Thursday 30 May at 11 a.m. Not that culture that flows around us every day in magazines and the media, but culture called independent, alternative, underground, and in the person of the deceased, moreover interwoven with spiritual radicalism and Christian tradition. Jaroslav Erik Frič died aged 69 years on 24 May 2019 after a severe illness, but mentally active until his last days.  more

The Brno group Hrozně slowly approach forty years of age – they started to give concerts in 1982. After several cassettes and unofficial recordings, they released a CD with their debut album Už není čas [There Is No Time Left] in 2013. Their new album named Ticho [Silence], which the band was working on over the last two years in the Indies studio, brings a surprise with its cleaner sound and clearly audible tension in the structure of the songs.  more

On May 17-19, the film festival on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the founding of Masaryk University came with some extraordinarily interesting screenings, reminiscent of important personalities from the university's history. The first of them had, in addition to the relationship with natural science, also the merit of studying folk songs. Professor Vladimír Úlehla (1888 – 1947) was commemorated by an impressive show by his great-granddaughter Julia Ulehla on Friday 17 May.  more

This year's Jazzman, a fanzine of the JazzFest music festival, was full of extensive medallions and articles and also featured a noteworthy commentary by the Czech Radio's dramaturge Petr Vidomus with a somewhat provocative headline: Jazz Doesn't Need to Be a Men's Club. The article contemplates  some  of the gender stereotypes, which the world (and therefore consequently not even the Czech) jazz scene has not yet gotten rid of completely. Great female soloists, mastering instruments previously entirely reserved for men, are growing in numbers. Although gender coding, which Vidomus described in a very precise and ironic way, has not yet been  completely overcome, JazzFest contributed significantly to its gradual elimination this year.  more