Related articles
Current AffairsThe Czech musical avant-garde of the twenties celebrated at Prague's Archa Theatre
A woman sighs, moans, and cries out with delight - this isn't the
soundtrack from a late-night movie, but one of the works in a classical
music concert. It's a composition from 1919 by one of the masters of the
inter-war avant-garde in Czechoslovakia, Erwin Schulhoff, and it's called
the Erotic Sonata, a solo for what the composer described as a
"mother-trumpet" - in fact a single female voice, a work with a
fascinating score of scribbles, lines and dots.
More
Arts"Nagano" Opera premieres at Prague's Estates Theatre
Thursday saw the premier of one of the National Theatre's most unique
productions - the opera Nagano, featuring the Czech ice-hockey team's
victory at the winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan, in 1998.
More
ArtsJazz guitarist David Doruzka launches new CD "Hidden Paths"
Our guest in today's Arts is young Czech jazz guitarist David Doruzka. Born
in 1980, David started performing regularly at the age of fourteen. Ten
years ago he received the "Best Talent of the Year" award from
the Czech Jazz Society and in the following years he performed with
leading musicians on the Czech jazz scene. In 1999 David Doruzka went to
Boston to study at Berklee College of Music. Last June he recorded his
first CD, called "Hidden Paths" in the United States. It was
officially released here in the Czech Republic on Tuesday. When David
Doruzka came into our studio, I first asked him whether he'd always wanted
to be a musician.
More
Czech MusicJosephine Baker - one of the great performers of all time - a 1970 interview with Radio Prague's Olga Szantova
When Josephine Baker died in Paris in 1975, over twenty thousand people
lined the city streets to watch her funeral procession. She is remembered
as one of the great performers of all time, overcoming poverty and racial
discrimination in the American south to become a legend in her lifetime.
In the 1920s her shows in her adopted Paris combined song, dance and
humour and took the city by storm, with an overt sensuality that for the
time was almost revolutionary. During the Second World War she worked with
the French Resistance, proving that her driving principles of freedom and
tolerance were a great deal more than skin-deep.
More
WitnessLubomir Doruzka: a concert for Haile Selassie
Lubomir Doruzka is a living legend of Czech jazz. He has been involved in
music since the Second World War, when, as a teenager, he worked on an
illegal jazz magazine. Because he speaks fluent English he has often
accompanied musical ensembles, both jazz and classical, on tours abroad.
Here he remembers an extraordinary concert in Addis Ababa during a tour of
Africa in 1957, when the Janacek Quartet was invited to play for the
Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie.
More
ArtsArts
Music and youth social work unite at the 10th anniversary of a civic
organization called Proxima Sociale. The event took place at a vibrant
Prague night club called Palac Akropolis last Friday. Proxima Sociale
works in two large districts in Prague and offers various resources to
youth, such as housing and psychological support, and they are also very
active in recruiting possible candidates for these services on the street.
But yes this is an arts report. The event presented four young Czech bands
ranging from jazz melodies, hardcore and reggae music.
More
Czech MusicFritz Weiss and a series of miraculous wartime jazz recordings
Prague's Jewish Museum recently released a CD that is nothing short of
miraculous. At the height of the Nazi occupation of Prague during the
Second World War, the Czech Jewish jazz musician, Fritz Weiss, made nearly
thirty recordings with the Emil Ludvik Orchestra. Weiss was musical leader
of the band and also made all the arrangements. Amazingly, he continued to
work with the band even after he was sent to the Terezin ghetto. In Encore
today, we'll be telling the story of these extraordinary swing recordings,
made literally in the shadow of the swastika.
More
