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The Husovický dvorek festival enters its 22nd year this year. The family programme will start on Sunday with the DNO theatre with the performance The Cunning Little Vixen and an exhibition of Vendula Chalánková. The festival will close with a concert by Martin Kyšperský.  more

On Saturday 15 April, the Czech Academy of Music announced the winners of the 2022 Anděl Awards. The awards are given in a total of fourteen categories, two of which belong to classical music and jazz. The winner in the classical category was conductor Marko Ivanović, who works at the Janáček Opera in Brno, together with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra.  more

The Brno cultural newsletter brings you an overview of events and opportunities in the coming period concerning theatres, clubs, festivals, and cultural events in Brno.  more

One of the icons of punk Public Image Ltd will perform this autumn in the Brno club Fléda. The British band will present their new album End of World. It comes out after almost a decade and will honour the memory of the late John Lydon’s wife.  more

The Ensemble Opera Diversa is preparing another concert for solo violin. The soloist of the evening will be Slovak violin virtuoso Milan Paľa, who will perform the premiere of Dandelion by Canadian-American composer Linda Catlin Smith.  more

I talked to Barbara Maria Willi, the dean of the Faculty of Music at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, dramaturge, teacher, populariser of classical music, harpsichordist, organist and specialist on the hammered dulcimer, about the 20th anniversary edition of the music series Barbara Maria Willi presents..., as well as about historically informed interpretation and further plans. The fact that she was actively teaching a foreign student just before our talk is the best indication of how busy her schedule is.  more

The Ondráš Military Art Ensemble (VUS Ondráš) is filling a position in the professional part of the ensemble. The ensemble is looking for a clarinet player. The selection process is announced for the beginning of May 2023.  more

On Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, the Reduta Theatre will host a programme by the Brno National Theatre (NdB 2) Junior Ballet called Adam and Eve / REM / Pampúšikmore

In mid-May, a festival will take place on the outskirts of Brno, attracting music, theatre, slam poetry, and books. It aims to celebrate female authorship across musical genres and artistic types.  more

The Brno National Theatre has presented the upcoming premieres for the 2023/2024 season. Among the opera productions on the programme next season will be, for example, The Jacobin or Rusalka by Antonín Dvořák. Ballet will be represented by Coco Chanel, choreographed by Mario Radačovský, and The Vigil, a follow-up to the award-winning 4 Elements. The upcoming season will be dedicated to the Year of Czech Music 2024, which commemorates the anniversary of composers ending with a four and generally focuses on Czech music.  more

Singer-songwriter Martina Trchová, winner of the Anděl award for her album Holobyt, recently disbanded her band and now performs mainly as a soloist. She is slowly working on a new album and is also focusing on visual arts. Her new book Babi, will soon be published, and she’ll also be holding another festival in the Obřany district of Brno. more

I talked to Barbara Maria Willi, the dean of the Faculty of Music at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, dramaturge, teacher, populariser of classical music, harpsichordist, organist and specialist on the hammered dulcimer, about the 20th anniversary edition of the music series Barbara Maria Willi presents..., as well as about historically informed interpretation and further plans. The fact that she was actively teaching a foreign student just before our talk is the best indication of how busy her schedule is.  more

The end of the Lenten season culminates in the Passover week with the commemoration of Christ’s Passion, whose motif was also the main dramaturgical idea of the Ensemble Opera Diversa concert entitled Lamento. The Wednesday evening of 29 March was devoted to works on lamentations by Czech and British composers. Conveniently, the ensemble chose for this concert the Baroque Hall of the Convent of the Merciful Brothers, which enhanced the Lenten atmosphere.  more

Armenian jazz pianist Tigran Hamasyan has long been dedicated to either his own work or to the inspiration of Armenian folklore. It wasn't until his tenth album, StandArt, that he decided to work with jazz standards, compositions that work for most jazz musicians as basic preparation and as material that players from all over the world agree on when jamming together. The pianist will present his current album on Friday 24 March 2023 at the Sono Centre in Brno as part of the JazzFestBrno festival.  more

After the American tour, the Brno Philharmonic, led by chief conductor Dennis Russell Davies, has prepared a mini-festival of three interconnected evenings called Dialogues. Each of these evenings offered a unique dramaturgy with extraordinary repertoire. It was partly linked to the aforementioned tour (e.g. the concert From America to the Czech Republic). The final concert of the trilogy, which took place on Friday 10 March at the Janáček Theatre, offered the home audience monumental orchestral works from the pens of composers Alfred Schnittke and Sergei Rachmaninoff. The entire concert was broadcast live on Czech Radio's Vltava station.  more

La Cantiga de la Serena is a trio from southern Italy, focusing on the music of the Mediterranean, seen as a bridge between the West and the East. The ensemble's repertoire consists of medieval dances and songs, sacred songs including pilgrim songs, medieval secular songs, and songs of the Sephardic Jews who had to leave what is now Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15th century. In 2021, the group released its third and most recent album to date, La Mar, and in the summer of 2022 performed in Brno at the Maraton Hudby festival. You can even recall the concert thanks to this interview. Our questions are answered by Fabrizio Piepoli, who sings and plays the Italian battente chitarra, as well as Giorgia Santoro, who plays a variety of flutes and whistles, including the Indian bansuri and Irish tin whistle, and the Celtic harp. Finally, the third member is Adolfo La Volpe, who plays the Arabic lute, classical guitar and Irish bouzouki.  more

The concert with subtitle “Comradeship, Cooperation, Subversion and a Big Battle at the End”, directed by the Brno Contemporary Orchestra (BCO), offered a remarkable programme of contemporary music. It consisted of three Czech and one world premiere, performed at the Besední dům on 27 February under the baton of the tribal conductor Pavel Šnajdr. The choice of the concert hall was anything but random. The Besední dům is celebrating 150 years since its opening this year, and the ensemble held an annual community concert to mark the important anniversary.  more

Last year’s album Morytáty a romance by Brno singer-songwriter and TV dramaturge Ivo Cicvárek scores points in annual polls beyond the pure folk genre. Ivo recorded his big project with his renamed band, which he now calls Živo, and a number of guests. In the interview he explains what is behind the songs of the album and talks about his future plans.  more

Naloučany is a small village on the Oslava River in the Vysočina region. The village has its own photographer, and his portraits of the village locals have found their way to the American Library of Congress and have become part of the largest collection of this medium since its beginnings. This is naturally a source of pride for nearly two hundred of the village’s inhabitants. That’s why they all joined forces to give their native photographer an event that would be remembered not only by them and by the photographer himself, but also by all the other visitors who took the trip through the snowy rolling landscape to the village’s community centre.  more

Folklore enthusiasts from all over Moravia met in the reconstructed hall of the largest Czech Sokol Hall on Kounicova Street in Brno. The traditional seventy-first ball was organised by the Slovácký krúžek Brno Club on Saturday 21 January. Two associations with a deep First Republic tradition were thus connected, and it seemed that they had shared a natural common bond all that time.  more

where to go: Interviews Articles Reviews
Upcoming events

miniMAXband

30/05/23, 0:00 / Café Práh

MATILDA

30/05/23, 18:00 / Hudební scéna Městského divadla Brno (Music Theatre)

Traditional MBS concert

30/05/23, 19:00 / Besední dům Concert Hall

Taverna - Prostějov + Sakrapes

30/05/23, 19:00 / Jazz bar U kouřícího králíka

Popelka

30/05/23, 19:00 / Mahen Theatre

Concentus Musicus Wien

31/05/23, 19:00 / Besední dům Concert Hall

P/\ST | Butterclub

31/05/23, 20:30 / Alterna

Children's day with Janáček's opera NdB

01/06/23, 13:00 / piazzetta in front of Janacek Theatre

Ferdy the Ant

01/06/23, 18:00 / Janáčkovo divadlo (Janáček Theatre)

Small operas through Czech fairytales

01/06/23, 18:00 / Divadlo Radost (Theatre Radost)


Listening Guide: Leoš Janáček's Sinfonietta
with Jakub Hrůša
more