Articles
The now world-famous Swedish band Dirty Loops finished their autumn European tour on Saturday, 30 November at Brno's Metro Music Bar. The band featured on the programme of the seventeenth annual Groove Brno funk, soul and jazz festival. The virtuoso trio, consisting of Jonah Nilsson - vocals and keyboards, Henrik Linder - bass guitar and Aron Mellergård - drums, are famous for their flawless technical proficiency, sophisticated original compositions and cover versions of well-known numbers, especially pop songs. However, these songs are often reharmonised in their arrangements and the style is more a combination of disco, pop and jazz fusion. To avoid having to resort to using pre-recorded backing tracks, the trio was joined on tour by keyboardist and vocalist Kristian Kraftling. more
The office of Brno - UNESCO City of Music, with the financial support of the South Moravian Region, presents a line-up of active folklore groups (ensembles, chasers, musics) in the Brno region as part of the Year of Folklore Ensembles. more
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
The Brno Dances and Sings Association and TIC Brno organised the 49th annual Brno Dances and Sings show on 6 June. The programme, concentrated into a single day, was busier than in previous years. The subtitle Year of Folklore Ensembles was borrowed from the project of the same name organised by the Brno UNESCO City of Music Office. more
For the fourth year in a row, audiences could visit the courtyard of Špilberk Castle and enjoy the dance art of the Ondráš Military Art Ensemble from Brno in a series called Evenings with Ondráš. This year, on the two days of 15 and 16 June, those interested once again saw the best that the company currently has to offer. Moreover, the concerts were fundraisers, with the money raised going to the Military Solidarity Fund. I will take a look at the second, Friday evening, during which Ondráš invited his friends from the Mladina ensemble of Pilsen to the stage. more
The celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Brno’s Besední dům, which take place within its premises and elsewhere, have an interesting and distinguished dramaturgy that manages to transport the audience to the early days of this concert venue. Two concerts took place on 4 and 5 May and were entitled “Janáček” and “Horňácká muzika”. I took part in the first one; it was a truly momentous experience prepared by the Brno Philharmonic and Petr Mička’s Horňácká muzika. Friday’s repeat of the concert was broadcast by Czech Television. Both nights were sold out and standing tickets were even added to the sale. 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
Martin Kyšperský and Aleš Pilgr recently celebrated twenty years of cooperation in the Květy (Flowers) group. While the bandmates and instruments around them have changed over the two decades, the two have remained a constant force in one of Brno's most essential bands of the century. This constant force, however, has been a dynamic one, as the two protagonists alternate between different instruments and approaches. Martin switches from the guitar to other instruments, and Aleš has gone from being a drummer to a double bassist and will be a drummer again from 2023. This context is then also important for understanding the new album Duo, which Kyšperský and Pilgr recorded as, well, a duo. more
Lidověk is the first solo album by Matěj Metoděj Štrunc, a young actor, singer and musician originally from Brno, frontman of the band Ateliér, and son of dulcimer player Dalibor and violinist Katerina Štrunc from the bands Cimbal Classic and Javory. The apple really did not fall far from the tree, but at the same time it came closer to other trees and colored itself with original colors. more
“We did it as a session, sitting opposite each other, so that the viewer would have the experience of coming to a rehearsal,” says singer Dan Bárta, describing how his current album, In One Breath (Jedním dechem), was recorded together with the jazz Robert Balzar Trio and Hungarian trumpeter Kornél Fekete-Kovács. The jazziest album in Dan Bárta’s rich discography was released on the Brno label Bivak Records and was recorded in the Brno studio of Czech Television. more
After a covid break, the streets of Brno were once again filled with costumes from various parts of Moravia as well as other European countries. On the first day of September, the International Folklore Festival Brno began. Like the vast majority of festivals and regular events that could not take place in the last two years, the IFF also had a break due to government measures. And that is why this year’s festival chose the telling subtitle “We Live”. This time BROLN provided the opening concert in the courtyard of the New Town Hall, and there were two special reasons for this. more
For the seventh time, the multi-genre music festival Brno Music Marathon proved that with precise organization and a little luck, an astonishing amount of music can be packed into one long weekend. From Thursday to Sunday (11-14 August), selected music halls, squares, courtyards, and city streets were filled with the artistic creations of countless bands, ensembles, and specific musical groups of all genres and styles. Lovers of rock, world music, jazz, artistic music, folklore, and improvised music were in for a treat. However, this year’s edition differed from the previous one in one crucial respect: 2022 introduced the first ever artist in residence of the festival, the violinist, flautist, and pianist Anna Fusek. more
The abbey in old Brno where Gregor Johann Mendel worked until his death hides several beautiful areas behind its walls. One of them is the Paradise Court, which is entered through an inconspicuous entrance next to the Basilica of the Assumption. On Thursday 16 June, the stone walls of this ancient space hosted the opening concert of the Brno and its churches project. more
On Friday 17 June, Catalan singer-songwriter Magalí Sare will perform in Brno as part of the Ibérica festival. Her current album Eponja reached number six on the prestigious World Music Charts Europe in June 2022, compiled by 45 European radio publicists from albums around the world. As an invitation to the concert, we bring you a review of this album. more
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
Christmas in Brno also means the traditional pre-Christmas concert of the Brno Contemporary Orchestra (BCO), this time entitled From America to Tuřany. It took place on 18th December and after a one-year break it returned to the Sokol Hall in Tuřany. The BCO, conducted by Pavel Šnajdr, performed works by Mauricio Kagel, Steve Reich, Trevor Grahl and, as always, Miloslav Kabeláč. Appearing together with the orchestra were four singers, Aneta Podracká Bendová, Kornél Mikecz, Michal Kuča and Martin Kotulan. At the end of the first half, Pavel Šnajdr set aside his baton and clapped the beat, joined by Petr Hladík. more
The now world-famous Swedish band Dirty Loops finished their autumn European tour on Saturday, 30 November at Brno's Metro Music Bar. The band featured on the programme of the seventeenth annual Groove Brno funk, soul and jazz festival. The virtuoso trio, consisting of Jonah Nilsson - vocals and keyboards, Henrik Linder - bass guitar and Aron Mellergård - drums, are famous for their flawless technical proficiency, sophisticated original compositions and cover versions of well-known numbers, especially pop songs. However, these songs are often reharmonised in their arrangements and the style is more a combination of disco, pop and jazz fusion. To avoid having to resort to using pre-recorded backing tracks, the trio was joined on tour by keyboardist and vocalist Kristian Kraftling. more
Ensemble Opera Diversa put a distinctive "spin" on its last orchestral concert of the year. It took place on 26 November at the Alterna music club, which is more a rock, electronica and indie pop hangout than an artistic music venue. The pair of selected pieces consisting of Vojtěch Dlask's premièred work Querell Songs for soprano saxophone and strings and Miloslav Ištvan's Hard Blues for pop-baritone, soprano, reciter and chamber ensemble also reflected this. Naturally, it was Ištvan's Hard Blues that gave the evening its name - the clash of the artistic, composed and purposefully "artistic" world (not meant pejoratively) with authentic African-American musical expressions springing from the depths of the soul of a man tested by life formed as the centre of the evening. This was not merely a stylistic inspiration, but more thematic, which was also evident in the opening piece of the evening. This was the composition Querelle Songs, inspired by Jean Genet's novel, previously dedicated to Ensemble Opera Diversa, but this time in a new instrumentation. more
Leoš Janáček's (1854-1928) Moravian national opera Jenůfa was brought to Brno for the Janáček Brno 2024 festival by the Moravian Theatre Olomouc in a co-production with the Janáček Opera NdB. Rather than using the Czech title Její pastorkyňa, the production team, headed by director Veronika Kos Loulová, decided to stage the work as Jenůfa, the name under which it is performed abroad. On Wednesday, 20 November, five days after its première in Olomouc, the audience at the Mahen Theatre could also see the latest domestic take on Janáček's most widely performed opera. The musical staging of the significantly modified original version from 1904 was the work of conductor Anna Novotná Pešková, and the main roles were played by Barbora Perná (Jenůfa), Eliška Gattringerová (Kostelnička), Josef Moravec (Laca Klemeň) and Roman Hasymau (Števa Buryja). more
The office of Brno - UNESCO City of Music, with the financial support of the South Moravian Region, presents a line-up of active folklore groups (ensembles, chasers, musics) in the Brno region as part of the Year of Folklore Ensembles. more
Trumpeter Jiří Kotača founded the big band Cotatcha Orchestra ten years ago. Nowadays, he performs a variety of programmes ranging from the most traditional jazz to a visionary fusion of jazz and electronica. We chatted with Jiří Kotača about how the orchestra has gradually developed, how the original repertoire is blurring the boundaries between jazz and electronica, and also about what fans can expect from the November concert to celebrate the orchestra's 10th anniversary. We also talk about Kotača's International Quartet, as well as how the trumpet and flugelhorn can be enriched with effects. more
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 Milfajtová, Vendula Příhodová and David Kraus. more
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 Sitkovetsky. more
Editorial
In mid-June, the Brno City Theatre will be hosting a festival showcase of professional theatre entitled Dokořán (Open Doors for) Musical Theatre, the only festival dedicated to presenting contemporary musical theatre works. The festival's dramaturgs have compiled a selection of ten of the most interesting productions representing the best currently on offer on stages at home and abroad. The show will be complemented by an exhibition marking 80 years of the Brno City Theatre, as well as a concert by Meteor from Prague. more
The Brno Philharmonic is to perform one of the 20th century's most demanding symphonies. Cellist Steven Isserlis will also be appearing
One of the world's finest cellists and one of the 20th century's most challenging symphonies. This is the programme of Schumann and Shostakovich, a concert the Brno Philharmonic has been preparing for this week. Steven Isserlis is coming to Brno to perform Robert Schumann' s Cello Concerto. more
Brno flautist Michaela Koudelková seeks support for her debut CD
Flautist Michaela Koudelková has launched a Hithit campaign to raise funds for the release of her first CD featuring sonatas by G. F. Handel and A. Corelli on the renowned SUPRAPHON label. The project will showcase the virtuosity of Czech musical artists. The choice of repertoire is also unique, as it is almost unheard of performed on the recorder. more
The thirtieth anniversary year of the Concentus Moraviae Festival is subtitled "Rondo Festivo"
The Concentus Moraviae International Music Festival celebrates its thirtieth birthday this year. From May to June it will offer its fans almost forty concerts in impressive venues in twenty festival towns and cities. The festival dramaturgy has been prepared by Jelle Dierickx, who has dubbed the whole event "Rondo Festivo". The playful title is a nod to the festive anniversary year as well as this year's artist in residence, French keyboard virtuoso and composer Jean Rondeau. more
Just in: Martin Glaser appointed Director of the National Theatre. He wants to stay in Brno until July 2028
Today, Culture Minister Martin Baxa announced the results of the selection process for the new General Director of the National Theatre and appointed Martin Glaser to the post. He is expected to start on 1 August 2028. more
Kantiléna is heading off on a US tour to join forces with a prestigious local choir
Nine days, three cities, four concerts, 51 young singers. Kantiléna, the children's and youth choir of the Brno Philharmonic, is preparing for a prestigious American tour, presenting mainly Czech composers to local audiences. more
Manon Lescaut returns to the Janáček Theatre after more than fifty years
After more than 50 years, a new production of Puccini's Manon Lescaut returns to the Janáček Theatre as the opera directorial debut of Štěpán Pácl and with music conducted by Ondrej Olos. more
Dinner that you do not eat, but listen to - the Brno Contemporary Orchestra invites you to a Culinary concert
The Brno Contemporary Orchestra (BCO) will be serving up a Culinary concert that will show that sounds can be as captivating as the most refined dishes. The event will take place in the dining room of the Masaryk Student Home in Brno and is subtitled "Dinner for Magdalena Dobromila Rettig". However, do not expect food on the table, but music - the main course will be the musical works of Ondřej Adámek. more
The National Theatre Brno is organising a meeting of lecturers from the field of culture
The National Theatre Brno invites Brno lecturers, educators in culture and anyone working in audience education at cultural and educational institutions to come along to a joint meeting at the Janáček Theatre. more
A gig by hypnotic British trio Mammal Hands combining jazz and electronics will open the twenty-fourth annual JazzFestBrno festival at the Fléda club. Newly additions to the line-up are the May concerts of pianist Nikol Bóková with her trio, double bassist Klára Pudláková with MAOMAH, and guitarist David Dorůžka, who will be launching a new joint album with the Piotr Wyleżoł Quartet entitled When the Child Was a Child. From the beginning of February to May, the festival will offer thirteen gigs by some top world jazz stars, as well as performances with a club atmosphere from the Club Life series in the stylish Cabaret des Péchés. more
