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One on OneSinger Karel Buriánek on the state of the Czech pop scene
My guest for One on One this week is Karel Buriánek, the frontman of Czech
indie rock band Sunshine. Karel, or Kay as he is known to his fans, has
worked in graphic design and fashion in Los Angeles, that’s before
settling back in the Czech Republic and focusing on music. Karel has a
weekly new music show on Radio Wave, and has just finished a hectic
summer’s touring with his band. When I met him on a sunny Prague café
terrace, he told me how playing all of this summer’s Czech festivals had
been:
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Music ProfileHana Hegerová – the Slav Edit Piaf
Hello and welcome to this month’s edition of Music Profile in which we
introduce Hana Hegerová, an actress and singer who is known as “the
Slav
Edit Piaf” or “the queen of chanson”. And we begin with her
rendition
of Edith Piaf’s smash hit Milord from 1959. More
Current AffairsUS musician Tom Waits plays first ever concerts in Czech Republic
The American musician Tom Waits has won legions of fans around the world
with his distinctive, growl-like voice and evocative lyrics. This week,
Czech music lovers finally got to see the singer live for the first time,
when he played two sold-out shows at Prague’s Congress Centre. I caught
the second concert, on Tuesday.
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ArtsYoung Czech jazz guitarist David Dorůžka releases new album
Guitarist David Dorůžka, one of the country’s most promising jazz
musicians, has recently released his second album called Silently Dawning.
Born in 1980, he started regularly performing at just 14, and later
studied
at Berklee College of Music in Boston. David Dorůžka wrote all the songs
on the new LP. But where does the title Silent Dawning come from? More
ArtsVisa agency head outlines which Czech musicians play in the US, where they play – and who they play to
The New York-based company Tamizdat brings music from central and eastern
Europe to an American audience. They also act as an agency helping
musicians get work visas to perform in the US, and handle the applications
of virtually every Czech musician who plays in America. For that reason,
Tamizdat owner Matthew Covey has an extensive knowledge of Czech artists
and the US – which groups visit the States, where they play, and who they
play to.
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ArtsNew exhibition treats communist oppression of 1980s Czech rock bands
This sort of music may not make for the easiest of listening, and the title
of the song ‘pal vodsud’ hajzle’ (something like ‘piss off,
jerk’), might not sound the most welcoming upon first read. But, it is a
good example of Czech new wave rock of the 1980s. The band? Jasná Páka
– one of the best known proponents of the new wave in this country, and
one of the communist regime’s biggest thorns in the side. Jasná Páka
reunited this week for a one-off concert to open a new exhibition at
Prague’s Pop Museum called ‘Nová vlna se starým obsahem’ (‘New
Wave – Old Content’). It charts the secret police’s attempts to clamp
down on rock bands of the 1980s – and the way that such bands struck
back.
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Current AffairsNewcomers Airfare burst onto Czech music scene
A new indy rock band called Airfare has been making headlines in the Czech
Republic in the weeks following the release of the group’s first album,
Hotel Moscow. The catchy first single off the CD “Sorry Baby” has made
its way up the charts and has attracted the attention of many new
listeners. Led by Czech-American frontman Thomas Lichtag, the band is
clearly making an impact. More
Letter from PragueOscar for Irglová and Hansard shows the Academy can occasionally get it
When they give a bagful of Academy Awards to some load of epic rubbish, as
they seem to so often do, it merely confirms my belief that the Academy is
made up of sentimental Hollywood insiders lobbied to within an inch of
their lives. But when they give an Oscar to a director/actor/film I admire
I instantly (and stupidly) attach value to the award and am really
pleased.
At least you got it right this time, I think. More
PanoramaOut in the cold world and far away from home: Bluegrass music in the Czech Republic
Bluegrass originates from the Appalachian region of the United States of
America, and is a type of music as American as apple pie. But bluegrass
enjoys a long and rich history in the Czech Republic too. Lee Bidgood is an
ethnomusicologist at the University of Virginia - the cradle of bluegrass.
For the past five years, he’s been looking at the way this music is
performed in the Czech Republic:
More
Czech MusicThree generations of a Prague musical family talk to Radio Prague
The years of German occupation and decades of communist rule that followed
have given music a very special role in Czech society. Amid censorship and
political manipulation, music became an important and often subversive tool
of free expression. The Doruzka family in many ways embodies this unusual
history. The broadcaster and writer Lubomir Doruzka was born in 1924, and
has been writing about jazz for well over sixty years. He still broadcasts
regularly on the subject. His son Petr, born in 1949, has continued the
tradition. He grew up listening to the underground bands of the sixties,
and today he is the Czech Republic’s foremost expert on “world
music”, well known to Radio Prague listeners through his regular feature
“Magic Carpet”. Petr’s son David, born in 1980, has returned to jazz
and has been lauded as one of the Czech Republic’s top jazz guitarists. A
few days ago I went to visit the three Doruzkas at the family’s house on
the southern outskirts of Prague, and we talked about their lives and
music.
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