Archive: Culture | Music Music
Music from the Noughties
In this week’s Sunday Music Show we highlight some of brightest new rock
and pop acts in the Czech Republic. Listen to fresh tracks from Bek Ofis
and a brace by Prague funk outfit Monkey Business – as well as a classic
from the first winner of Czech Pop Idol. More
Chinaski - one of the most successful Czech pop bands today
In this edition of our Sunday Music Show, we bring you the greatest hits by
the popular pop rock outfit Chinaski, a band that has stormed the Czech
charts many times. More
Sunday Music Show
In today's edition
we look back at some of the most popular Czech bands in the 1990s, after
the so-called Velvet divorce between the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Bands
and performers you’ll hear include the rock group Lucie, folksinger
Jaromír Nohavica, jazzman Jiří Stivín and more. More
The Cross Club – independent culture centre with a twist
In this week’s Spotlight we take you to an independent culture centre
decorated with an abstract array of industrial machine part artistry. More
Czech music composer Karel Svoboda
This week’s Sunday Music Show is devoted to Karel Svoboda one of the
country’s most prolific composers, the author of countless hit-songs,
well-known scores for films, musicals, TV series and theatre productions.
Although the man himself was never centre stage several generations of
Czechs grew up with his music and people still hum many of his evergreens. More
Satchmo and the liberating power of jazz
Nothing better symbolizes the political thaw in 1960s Czechoslovakia than
the boom in jazz, which many saw as embodying the very idea of individual
expression and freedom from constraint. It is not hard to imagine the
excitement when Louis Armstrong came to Prague in March 1965. Many people
felt that Czechoslovakia had at last come in from the cold, and his concert
at Prague’s Lucerna Ballroom was a cultural milestone. It ended with
Satchmo thanking his audience, commenting that the Czech passion for jazz
had come as quite a surprise to him. More
Petr Novák: The man who wrote the soundtrack for the Prague Spring
Petr Novák's unmistakeable, delicate tenor voice is synonymous with
Czechoslovak society of the late 1960s. This talented musician shot to
fame in this country at the time of the Prague Spring, when his gentle
love songs influenced by Western pop groups like The Beatles were hugely
popular among young Czechs. His success during this era, however, proved
to be short-lived and his career subsequently stagnated under the
influence of communist repression and his own problems with alcohol. More
Moravian folk fusion band Hradišťan and Jiří Pavlica
Hradišťan is one of the country’s most respected interprets of folk
music. The band started as a folk music ensemble in the south Moravian town
of Uherské Hradiště – hence the name – in the 1950s but its rise to
popularity and critical acclaim began when Jiří Pavlica became the
band’s leader, or primáš, in the 1970s. More
Paul Robeson in Prague: paying homage to Dvořák and socialism
In last week’s From the Archives we featured Martin Luther King,
interviewed by Czechoslovak Radio in 1963. But Dr King was not the first
civil rights campaigner to address Czech and Slovak radio listeners. Four
years earlier, in June 1959, Paul Robeson came to Prague, to take part in
an international left-wing cultural congress. Robeson was a man of many
talents – singer, actor, athlete, writer and civil rights activist. He
never concealed his sympathies with the communist regimes of the Eastern
Bloc, and his political views – combined with the colour of his skin –
earned him virtual pariah status in many sections of the US political
establishment. This culminated in 1950 when he was refused a passport. More
Dance music diva Jitka Charvátová (aka. Ji)
Anyone familiar with the Czech electronic and dance music scene will have
come across the work of Jitka Charvátová, also known as Ji, the
charismatic and talented former singer for cutting edge groups like Skyline
and the late Milan Hlavsa’s 1990s band Fiction. Now Jitka has reset her
career with a recently released but already highly-lauded new solo album
called Feed My Lion, featuring 8-bit, electro pop and elements of hip hop. More
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