This Year the Brno Music Marathon Will Include all Musical Genres

This Year the Brno Music Marathon Will Include all Musical Genres

The second year of the multi-genre festival Brno Music Marathon is approaching. The biggest summer festival in Brno will welcome dozens of international participants. Space will be given to various musical genres within the festival, from Balkan Brass bands via classical chamber and orchestral, jazz, folk, world music, rock, groups for children all the way to off-street busking. The musical programme will be supplemented by three performances of the new circus Collectif Malunés, street theatre, a magician and an acrobatic helium balloon.

 “Since last year’s pilot the Brno Music Marathon has grown into the city’s largest summer music festival. For three days the city becomes a giant stage, on which concerts of all musical genres are interwoven with theatrical or acrobatic performances by both Czech and foreign artists,” says Jana Janulíková, director of TIC BRNO, co-organiser of the festival.

The first day of the festival will offer a jazz programme in the Sono Centre, opened by the Vilém Spilka Quartet with a project of jazz remakes of the songwriter Honza Nedvěd. A special programme created for the Marathon will be presented by the distinctive musicians Beata Hlavenková and Dorota Barová. To conclude the evening there will be a performance by the Shai Maestro Trio and the French saxophonist Guillaume Perret, a recent discovery at Colours of Ostrava. Friday evening will also enjoy something of a rock spirit. Ritchie Blackmore will present his project Blackmore’s Night at Špilberk. There will also be off-street busking and new circus.

Saturday will belong to the project Špilberk Balkannn! Foreign groups Bohemian Betyars, Russkaja and Dubioza kolektiv will be performing on stage. The domestic scene will be supplemented by Circus Brothers and the DJ duo Malalata. In the folk circuit on Moravské náměstí audiences will have a chance to enjoy Bohemian and Moravian folk music as well as that of the Greek, Macedonian and Serbian communities that are firmly established in Brno. The evening will culminate at the Goose on a String Theatre with performances of cimbalom music such as CM Petr Mička and CM Danaj with the legendary multimedia project Písničky z malířovy palety (Songs from a Painter’s Palette).

Sunday is linked to classical music. Barbara Maria Willi will perform in Reduta with her musical guests the new love story. The Alfa Passage will host the attractive and popular Piano Relay, where absolutely anyone can play. The Jesuit church will resound to the Endless Organ under the patronage of Prof Alena Veselá. The grand finale of this year’s Marathon will take place at Špilberk Castle with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, which will be accompanying the soprano Simona Šaturová in an Italian opera programme.

On each day of the festival there will be one of the unique performances by the Franco-Belgian new circus ensemble Collectif Malunés, which has been successful throughout Europe. In a grand marquee set up on a site at Hněvkovského they will be giving three performances of the impressive spectacle Forever, Happily.

Another three series will also take over Brno for several days. In some rather surprising places in the city centre on Friday and Saturday it will be possible to see and hear musicians and performers under the baton of Kateřina Šedá, artist and internationally respected for her implementation of projects in public spaces. For Brno she has organised the first off-street busking with unexpectedly placed musicians. For the whole of the three days of the festival there will also be the living city festival Na prknech, dlažbě i trávě (On the Boards, Pavements and Lawns). As part of this audiences can look forward to the flying balloon of V.O.S.A. Theatre, Divadlo II. Pád and Sunday’s carnival for children on Moravské náměstí.

The Brno Music Marathon will take place from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 August throughout the city.

Shai Maestro Trio/ photo from group’s archive

Comments

Reply

No comment added yet..

On Saturday, 24 August, the Korean radio orchestra KBS Symphony Orchestra with its musical director - Finnish conductor and violinist Pietari Inkinen - came to Brno's Špilberk Festival with an exclusively romantic repertoire. The invitation was also accepted by South Korean violinist Bomsori Kim, a graduate of the prestigious Julliard School.  more

For a quarter of a century now, the Brno Philharmonic has been organising the Špilberk Festival at the end of August in the courtyard of the castle of the same name. Four open-air musical evenings offer the audience a selection of concerts featuring classical, film and computer music, as well as often jazz and other genres. This makes it a diverse mix of performers and repertoires with an often pleasant, summery, laid-back ambience. This year's big and rapdily sold-out attraction was the Wednesday evening of 21 August, full of melodies from the James Bond films, performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, headed by world-renowned conductor, composer and arranger Steven Mercurio. During the concert, the audience also got to enjoy singers Sara MilfajtováVendula Příhodová and David Krausmore

As part of its European tour, the Taiwanese Taipei Philharmonic Chamber Choir (TPCC), under the direction of artistic director and choirmaster Dr. YuChung Johnny Ku, took the city up on its invitation and visited Brno. The concert was held on Monday, 13th August in the hall of the newly renovated Passage Hotel.  more

The final concert of this year's season of the Brno Philharmonic was devoted to works by Antonín Dvořák and Jean Sibelius at the Janáček Theatre. On Thursday, 20 June, Danish conductor Michael Schønwandt, who had not appeared before a Brno audience since January last year, took the lead of the Philharmonic. In the first half of the programme, the orchestra was accompanied by violinist Alexander Sitkovetskymore

In the spirit of the idea that Brno and folklore belong together, the Folklore Ensemble Happening of the Year took place on Thursday 6 June. The event was organised by the Brno UNESCO City of Music Office in cooperation with the Brno Dances and Sings association. The event thus became part of a long-term project that set out to map the amateur music scene in Brno, and not only folk music. Last year Brno City of Music reached out to choirs in a similar way, and in the future will host garage bands and more. This just goes to prove the diversity of Brno's music scene, not only as regards professional ensembles, but also enthusiastic amateurs for whom music is an inseparable part of their lives.  more