Jiří Plocek will present his new book “Song as a Symbol”

7 February 2023, 1:00
Jiří Plocek will present his new book “Song as a Symbol”

Jiří Plocek will be presenting his new book Píseň jako simbol (Song as a Symbol – In the Footsteps of a Phenomenon of Human Culture), published last December by Galén, at the Academia bookstore in Brno.

Song – like its mother music – is ubiquitous and culture-making. Let us try to imagine a world in which song or music is absent, a world in which one cannot even whistle a simple melody or tap out a simple rhythm. It is not possible. And if we do, then we are getting outside our world. Outside the human world. A song entertains us, pleases us, encourages us, heals us. It connects us through tradition to the past, but it also opens up the future, new spaces of the human spirit. It is a prophet of change. We are so surrounded by song that we are often unaware of what it means to us. What does it symbolize? What does it say about us? The sound of a song is a symbol of a living person. The author of this book has attempted to capture the song from different angles as a living phenomenon that co-creates our lives. He has connected the more general reflection with everyday reality. He used his career as an active musician (Poutníci, Teagrass, Plocek & Šuranská), music publisher and producer (Gnosis Brno), radio editor (Czech Radio Brno) and publicist. The author’s countless encounters with specific people and situations, as well as with echoes of the past and contemporary resonant song, have contributed significantly to the final form of the book. The book Song as Symbol is the first part of the journalistic output of the author’s broader project Song of the Soul.

The discussion with the author’s autograph session is scheduled for Tuesday, 14 February 2023 at 17:00 in the Literary Café (Academia Bookstore, 13 Svoboda Square).

Photo by Jiří Sláma

Comments

Reply

No comment added yet..

Another of the jazz evenings regularly organised by the Brno Philharmonic was dedicated to the duo Will Vinson (alto saxophone) and Aaron Parks (piano). These musicians have been working together in various formations for twenty years. So they decided that it was time to try the most intimate and, according to many, the most difficult - playing as a mere duo. These mid-generation jazz musicians performed a selection of classical jazz material as well as several of their own compositions on Monday 10 March at the Besední dům.  more

This year's first concert by the Brno Contemporary Orchestra from the Auscultation series was entitled Gastro (Cuisine), or Dinner for Magdalena Dobromila Rettig (1785-1845). On Sunday, 2 February, the orchestra performed two compositions, or rather performances and happenings by Ondřej Adámek (*1979), who also conducted the pieces, in the dining room of the Masaryk Student House. This was a fairly unusual situation for the audience, when conductor Pavel Šnajdr did not take his place at the head of the orchestra.  more

The fourth concert in the Brno Philharmonic's Philharmonic at Home subscription series, subtitled Metamorphoses and conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, was dedicated to works by Joseph Haydn, Antonín Rejcha and Richard Strauss. Pianist Ivan Ilić was originally scheduled to appear as soloist in Rejcha's Piano Concerto, but for health reasons he cancelled the concert. Jan Bartoš promptly took over, enabling the audience to hear the original programme on Thursday 30 January at the Besední dům.  more

The Brno Philharmonic's New Year's concert on 1 January at the Janáček Theatre is already a well-established tradition. This year was no exception, and the orchestra, led by conductor Michel Tabachnik, gave a performance consisting mainly of works by Johann Strauss the Younger. This was the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra's show opening the 'Strauss Year'. After all, 2025 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the composer, dubbed the king of waltzes. Strauss's compositions were accompanied by works by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Richard Strauss and Dimitri Shostakovich.  more

"Culture is a Bridge" was the theme of the second Czech-Austrian Partnership Concert, held on Friday, 20 December at Schloss Thalheim. It was the final evening of the 5th year of the pan-European project Czech Dreams 2024, and also part of the celebrations of the Year of Czech Music and the Concentus Moraviae international music festival. Culture is a bridge that connects not only different generations and social classes, but also entire nations. And the Czech Dreams project, which in 2024 alone presented music by Czech composers in 25 European cities in 17 different countries, is an eloquent example of this. In December alone, besides the final concert in Austria, six more concerts were performed in southern Europe, from Amarante in Portugal to Varaždin in Croatia. The concert was dedicated to the Lower Austrian Governor Erwin Pröll, who has long been committed to building and deepening relations between the Czech Republic and Austria.  more