In addition to concerts, the international festival also includes events such as Kateřina Šedá’s Streetless Busking and the Marathon Street Food Festival. The festival’s artist in residence is multi-instrumentalist Anna Fusek. The event will also include a meeting of journalists from the prestigious World Music Charts Europe. The Brno Music Marathon is a key music event for the city of Brno as part of its membership of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network for Music.
The seventh edition of the Brno Music Marathon attracts Balkan brass music on the piazzetta in front of the Janáček Theatre, world music at Biskupák, folklore at Hus ana provázku, or a musical at Orlí. The biggest music event of the Brno summer takes place from Thursday 11 August to Sunday 14 August 2022. There are 150 concerts scheduled at 31 venues in the center of Brno. The official opening of this year’s Marathon will take place on Thursday 11 August at Svoboda Square. The venue will host a truck stage, which will feature a drumming show by Ritmo Factory and a performance by the energetic band Connection, featuring well-known double bassist and multi-genre musician Josef Feč.
New this year is the post of artist in residence, which will be held for the first time by the outstanding multi-instrumentalist Anna Fusek. Over the course of four days, she will perform with great musician-colleagues and present music of different genres; from classical music to jazz to Brazilian rhythms. “In recent years I have been trying to expand my musical language, I enjoy exploring different areas of music. The musical diversity of the festival thus reflects my personal approach to music,” explains musician Anna Fusek. She will perform four times at the festival – for the first time on Thursday with the British violinist Mayah Kadish with a classical program entitled Mozart meets Morley, and on Friday she will present the program Brief Tales for Two at Villa Tugendhat with the lively Italian lutenist Gianluca Geremia. On Saturday they will perform in the festive hall of the Theatre Faculty of JAMU with their successful project Cosmology of the Pear with elements of early music and jazz and improvisation. On Sunday, she will immerse herself in the rhythm of Brazilian music with the Aguaverde group and singer Simona Gatto.
The festival has also prepared other novelties. After the outdoor stages close, those interested can move to the Festival Late Night Music Bar at the International Hotel, where a number of musicians will perform well into the late night hours. Visitors will be able to enjoy refreshments in the hotel bar at special festival prices. This year the festival café will be the business of the well-known restaurateur Janko Martinkovic, Larva mola. The business will prepare a photographic exhibition of popular rooms by Kateřina Šedá captured through the lens of Roman France, occasional concerts, and a special festival offer.
In front of the Letmo shopping centre, a new busker room will be built as part of the traditional Streetless Busking for the bicentenary of the birth of naturalist Johann Gregor Mendel, Kateřina Šedá has created a thematic greenhouse. In addition, people can enjoy a children’s room in the Mouse Hole, a living room in Česká Street, a kitchen on Panská Street, and a bathroom on Svoboďák.
The world music scene is an important part of the festival. The Bishop’s Court will host the female vocal ensemble Saucējas from Latvia, the southern Italian acoustic trio La Cantiga de la Serena, and the Polish group Warsaw Village Band, whose latest album was the second best world music recording of 2021. The scene was created in cooperation with World Music Charts Europe. Some of the journalists from this international project will also visit the festival, where a working meeting will also take place. The headquarters of the charts will be based in Brno from November 2020.
Other highlights of the festival include the stellar Romanian brass band Fanfare Ciocărlia, the Hungarian Botos Family, the Slovak Michal Noga Band, the Polish MØW Band, Ester Kočičková with her Moody Cat Band, the AG Flek band, the well-known Roma group Kalé, the Soul Ožil band, and the Dušan Vančura Antikvartet. The popular matinee in the Chamber Hall was prepared by Barbara Maria Willi and her friends from the Summer Music Academy Kroměříž.
There will also be a residency project of the Divergent Connections Orchestra, its founder Pavel Zlámal and musicians Bart Maris and Giovanni Barcella from Ghent, the UNESCO City of Music. Together they will perform in a transcendent music and dance marathon of five hours at the Ponava Music Club. The creative Brno-based Hausopera ensemble will present the last of a trilogy of operas linked to Brno’s important functionalist monuments. The venue for the opera “The Eternal Miss Pale, or Operatic Uncertainty for the Masses” will be the Zeman Café in Josefská Street. Other popular venues include the Endless Organ in the Jesuit Church, the Piano Relay in the Alfa Passage, and the ZUŠ Open in the courtyard of the Old Town Hall.
The festival will also pamper its audience with cuisine. The second edition of the Marathon Street Food Festival will run parallel to the main music program from 11 to 14 August in sixteen bistros and restaurants in the center of Brno. Each of the participating establishments will prepare, in addition to its traditional menu, one dish specially created for the festival audience for a single price of CZK 170. This dish will be available in the restaurant or bistro as well as a take-out dish.
The 7th year of the festival will end with a new-circus performance. The artistic ensemble Blackout Paradox will bring the Nautilus show to the Brno Music Marathon. In it, the artists will evoke the atmosphere of Jules Verne’s stories; together with the audience, they will dive deep under the sea and get to know Captain Nemo or the mystery of the Mountain of Fire. The new-circus performance is a joint project of Marathon Music Brno and the partner festival On the Boards, Pavement, and Grass, which runs until 21 August. While the Marathon will end this year’s edition with an acrobatic show, it will be the opening event for the BPG festival.
Concert-goers can purchase tickets at GoOut. Festival-goers can visit selected performances and the busker line-up for free.
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