Topic Archive Culture
Carp and Carols with the Nightingales
A few days ago David Vaughan went to meet the Slavíčci – or Nightingales – one of Prague’s best-known children’s choirs. He talked to members of the choir about the rich tradition of Czech Christmas music, about why you might find yourself sharing your bath with a carp in the days before Christmas Eve, and what it’s like to sing beneath the towering Gothic vaults of Saint Vitus’ Cathedral. And, of course, the choir also brings us some of the best loved Czech carols, recorded especially for Radio Prague. That and more, in Radio Prague’s special Christmas Day programme. Happy listening. More
Václav Havel’s literary agent Jitka Sloupová on his plays, their foreign productions and his image as an author
The late Václav Havel is now being remembered as a great statesman and
human rights advocate. But he was also a prominent literary figure. In
fact, before he became an opposition leader in communist Czechoslovakia, he
was already established playwright whose plays appeared on stages
worldwide. Václav Havel’s literary agent Jitka Sloupová, from the Aura
Pont agency, talks about what inspired his dramas that quickly gained
acclaim both at home and abroad. More
Ryba’s Czech Christmas Mass premieres in Chicago
It has taken more than 200 years for Jakub Jan Ryba’s Czech Christmas
Mass to come to Chicago, but it seems that good things come to those who
wait. The Ryba Mass was premiered in the Windy City on Saturday and Rosie
Johnston was there. More
Václav Havel - 'Guardian Angel'
This play is vintage Havel, his only radio play, dating back to the first half of 1968, when he was at the height of his creative powers. Not long after it was completed, Soviet tanks brought an end to the reforms of the Prague Spring, and for two decades the play was left on the shelf. More
Kateřina Rudčenková: the waves of the Caribbean break on the shores of Lake Balaton
What happens when five women poets writing in five different languages meet
on the edge of a Hungarian lake? As we find out now in Czech Books, the
experience can offer rich insights into what different languages and
cultures have in common, and where they differ. David Vaughan talks to the
poet Kateřina Rudčenková. More
Jazz legend Emil Viklický
It has been a good year for Czech jazz legend Emil Viklický, beginning
with a Presidential Medal of Merit and ending with the release of two new
albums, one in Germany called “Spring Awakening” and another in Japan,
where he plays regularly, called Kafka on the Shore, a Tribute to Haruki
Murakami. In the first part of a wide-ranging interview with the pianist we
began by talking about his English, which he told me he originally picked
up from his black fellow musicians in the 1970… More
Panorama
In this week’s edition of Panorama: a student orchestra packs concert
halls with famous movie soundtracks, a computer as a work of art, chocolate
as the ultimate gourmet experience and kangaroo Vendelín becomes a
household name.
More
Tomáš Zilvar – magazine publisher focused on future media
Back in the mid 1990s Tomáš Zilvar quickly moved from putting together
DIY fanzines to publishing glossy titles like Tripmag and XMAG, magazines
that were focused on electronic music at a time when that genre was really
taking off among young Czechs. Today Zilvar, who is still in his early 30s,
has two jobs: running the Prague office of the hip New York-based magazine
and website Vice; and offering digitalisation services to Czech media
outlets and authors keen to enter the age of e-readers. More
Karel Mareš - Czech pop-music composer
In today’s Sunday Music Show we will feature the greatest hits by the
Czech pop-music composer Karel Mareš who died last month at the age of 84.
A composer, lyricists, pianist, screenplay writer, theatre and film
director, theatre manager as well as an occasional actor, this
inconspicuous “man at the back” had a significant influence on the
development of Czech popular music of the 1960s. More
The prison poet: remembering Ivan Martin Jirous
Last month was the end of an era in Czech poetry. The man who practically
embodied the poetic underground of the 1970s and 80s, Ivan Martin Jirous
– alias Magor, or Loony in English – died at the age of 67. Not only
was Magor one of best Czech poets of his generation, but also the driving
force behind the underground rock scene. He embodied the longing for
rebellion and freedom, as so-called “normalization” sucked the air out
of Czech and Slovak society. In Czech Books, David Vaughan talks to one of
Magor’s close friends and associates. More
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