Interviews

When I polled Czech jazz musicians to find the most significant woman on the domestic scene, the largest number of votes went to the trumpet player, composer and conductor Štěpánka Balcarová and the pianist and composer Beata Hlavenková. In the JazzFest Brno festival both will be performing. The Concept Art Orchestra big band under Štěpánka Balcarová will be performing on Wednesday 5 April in the Theatre Husa na provázku and a day later the trumpet player will be playing in HaDivadlo with her Czech-Polish group Inner Spaces. On Thursday 13 April in Besední dům the will be a concert of Beata Hlavenková, focussing on her most recent album Scintilla. We conducted interviews with both young ladies.  more

The singer Lenka Nová was born in Brno. Even now she frequently and happily returns. Last autumn she released her third profile disk, Čtyřicítka (Forty), on which there are ten personal songs with texts by Michal Horáček. She was recently nominated for the Anděl music prize in the category Singer of the Year. This year with a newly rehearsed repertoire on March 8 and 9 in the bar U kouřícího králíka in her home town she opened her Čtyřicítka Tour, the spring part of which will be concluded with a Prague concert in the DVA studio on May 21. And we spoke about all of this …  more

Soprano Maida Hundeling, who debuted, for example, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York last season, returned to the Janáček Opera after a year. The singer known from leading opera houses around the world will perform in Brno again in the role of Tosca in Puccini's opera of the same name. The production of the local artistic director Jiří Heřman already impressed during its premiere. The director based his concept on the connection between the story of the singer Tosca in the environment of the complicated political situation in the Roman Republic in 1800 and the story of one of its extraordinary performers in the second half of the last century – opera superstar Maria Callas. As the critics wrote, it is a theatrically impressive and inspiring interconnection between the fates of the two women, adored opera divas, who were in love in politically complicated times that swallowed them whole. Mainly Maida Hundeling excelled in the main roles of this Brno production.  more

The Vilém Spilka Quartet included surprising material in their new album Podvod. The band, headed by the director and dramaturgist of the JazzFest Brno Festival, recorded instrumental jazz arrangements of songs Hejna včel, Tulácký ráno, Na kameni kámen, Stánky and other campfire hit songs by Jan Nedvěd. He had a chance to listen to the recording shortly after its completion and we spoke to Vilém Spilka about Nedvěd’s reaction. And the interview, of course, also covered Porta, sausages and a campfire pot.  more

 We talked with Jitka Šuranská about a new album full of music, where she is the bandleader, but as she points out herself, she is only one of three equal elements. The Jitka Šuranská Trio consists of her, cross-genre mandolinist Martin Krajíček and multi-instrumentalist (educated jazz bassist) Marian Friedl. The three musicians started the debut tour of the first album Divé husy symbolically on 1 October at the Goose Festival in Boskovice, two day later they launched it in the Stará Pekárna Club in Brno. Until mid-October, they will be touring clubs, cinemas and libraries in Náchod, Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, Zlín and České Budějovice. Although the trio mentions folk songs as their inspiration, their author's coat is made of many musical styles, yet it is harmonious and interesting. And Jitka's own musician's path is important and inspirational for the final outcome.  more

The Swedish mezzo-soprano Katarina Karnéus is hosting in Radok's opera staging of Bluebeard's Castle / Expectation where she plays the role of the Woman. Katarina Karnéus is the winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition and debuted at the New York Metropolitan Opera as Varvara in Janáček's Katya Kabanova. This season, she performs in the Stuttgart Staatstheatre, Theater Basel and in the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus. The premiere of the Bluebeard's Castle / Expectation is part of the programme of the 2016 Janáček Brno Festival.  more

Canadian director Robert Carsen is among today's elite directors in the world of opera. His productions have been in the repertoire of major opera houses, such as the La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in England or the Royal Opera House Covent Garden for many years. His work is often referred to as the so-called regietheater because he usually stages operas at times and places different from the original score. Yet his productions excel in unique poetics, dramaturgical compactness and mainly in the fact that they are an emotional, lively and extremely impressive theatre. The 2016 Janáček Brno Festival will open with one of the most famous productions by Carsen, Janáček's Katya Kabanova. It will be performed by the ensemble of the Janáček Opera of the Brno National Theatre. The Brno theatre will be the first ensemble in the Czech Republic that has a production by Robert Carsen in their permanent repertoire.  more

A long Czech tour of the English blues guitarist Will Johns was taking place nearly all throughout September. A nephew of Eric Clapton and George Harrison and a son of famed producer Andy Johns (he worked with Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones) began touring in the early 1990s. His latest album is called Something Old, Something New... and Will Johns will also present it in Brno. His concert in the Stará Pekárna Music Club will take place on Tuesday, 13 September from 8:00 p.m. This interview with the guitarist was conducted by phone.  more

Dulcimer player from the Javory Band, bandleader and founder of the folk Cimbal Classic and music educator Dalibor Štrunc released his new record Malované na cimbál. Štrunc's instrumental songs on this album are played by his students from the Conservatory Anna Múčková, Kateřina Harnošová, and Barbora Jagošová. We talked to the dulcimer player and songwriter, who has just turned 50, about this piece of work and more.  more

Last year, soprano Martina Janková, baritone Tomáš Král and pianist Ivo Kahánek recorded an album of folk songs edited by Leoš Janáček. Visitors of the 2016 Janáček Brno Festival will also have the opportunity to experience its live performance. The only change is that Roman Hoza will perform instead of Tomáš Král at the concert in the Villa Tugendhat. Martina Janková talked about her journey from childhood with folk music to Janáček.  more

Songwriter and guitarist František Chaloupka switches between rock, contemporary and classical music and other genres. Besides that, he founded the Guitar Institute in 2014. We talked about guitar instruction tailored to students. And about the directions in which the Institute could develop further.  more

How does the Mozart effect work? Why does Mozart's music reduce epileptic discharges in the brain, while Haydn's does not? How do the brains of the audience without musical training and professional musicians perceive music? We were looking for answers with the head of the Centre for Neuroscience of the Central European Institute of Technology (CEITEC), Professor Ivan Rektor.  more

25-year-old guitarist Jannis Moras is a rising star on the Brno scene. The songwriter with Greek roots works with his father Trifon Moras and his two brothers in the I Parea band. With the Anatoli band that plays traditional Greek music, he recently won the South Moravian round of the Porta competition. And he has his own original project Jannis Moras a band(a) that will perform on 4 June as part of the Greek Saturday at the Veveří Castle. We talk to Jannis Moras about music that he plays and about the Greek community in Brno.  more

Inconspicuous concerts in high-pitched frequencies go through the city. Their centre is an area called Rumiště, the producer and DJ Snediggen Snurssla stands behind them. This week, his AVA loft sessions are being held for the fifteenth time and they will head from Rumiště to Mosilana. Furthermore, we talked about adventurous music and listening to the city.  more

The Brno Contemporary Orchestra was founded five years ago by conductor Pavel Šnajdr. Music by contemporary composers is nothing unusual to him, he considers it an everyday matter of course. And that is how he wants to bring it closer to the audience. The upcoming concert in Hall A at the Brno Exhibition Centre was one of the reasons for this interview about the creation of the orchestra and their plans. And about contemporary music in general.  more