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Current AffairsSir Charles Mackerras: a life-long passion for Janacek
Not only is Sir Charles Mackerras one of the world's great conductors, but
he has also done more than anyone else to draw international attention to
Czech music. Leos Janacek, who was born 150 years ago this year, is Sir
Charles's great musical passion, and it was rather apt that a major
festival of Janacek's music in the composer's home town of Brno should
have culminated in an honorary doctorate being awarded to Sir Charles by
the city's Janacek Academy of Musical Arts. Radio Prague's Jaromir Marek
was there, and took the opportunity to talk to Sir Charles about his love
for Janacek and the mixed feelings of many Czechs towards one of the
country's great musical sons.
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WitnessGeoffrey Chew and the benevolent police informer
In the days of the Cold War people who came into regular contact with
foreigners were kept under close police scrutiny and were put under
intense pressure to report on details of their meetings. In the early
1960s the South African musicologist Geoffrey Chew spent a year studying
in the city of Brno. His landlady was a highly cultivated woman, who spoke
several languages. She was also a reluctant police informer, but she got
round this rather distasteful problem in a neat and elegant way. On a
recent trip back to Brno, Geoffrey Chew remembered the time.
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Current AffairsTwo very different exhibitions offer insights into the life and work of Leos Janacek
Last week we reported from the Czech Republic's second city of Brno on a
major festival devoted to the Czech composer, Leos Janacek. But the
festival isn't the only event under way in the city related to the
Moravian capital's greatest musical son. This year is the 150th
anniversary of the composer's birth, and on Friday two new exhibitions
opened in Brno, devoted to Leos Janacek. David Vaughan spoke with the
director of Brno's House of the Arts, Jitka Vitaskova.
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Current AffairsJanacek fever hits Brno
Janacek fever has hit the Czech Republic's second city, the Moravian
capital, Brno. This year sees two major anniversaries in connection with
Leos Janacek, one of the giants in the history of Czech music and perhaps
Moravia's greatest son. It's the 150th anniversary of his birth, and this
week is the 100th anniversary of the premiere in Brno of one of Janacek's
greatest works, the opera, Jenufa. The Moravian capital is marking the
event in style, as David Vaughan reports from Brno.
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ArtsArts news, Exhibition on Czech Musicians
In this week's Arts, Dita Asiedu looks at some of the developments on the
Czech cultural scene and talks to a Foreign Ministry representative about
a travelling exhibition that presents four of the country's finest
musicians to the world.
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Czechs in HistoryLeos Janacek
It's time now for this week's edition of Czechs in History, and this week Nick Carey takes a look at the life of Czech composer Leos Janacek...
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