Classical Music

The world renowned French horn player Radek Babor�k has chosen for his new album "Orquestrina" compositions inspired by dance in it's various forms; alongside compositions by famous authors as Astor Piazzolla (Histoire du tango), Gabriel Faur� (Pavana) or Maurice Ravel (Bol�ro) the album also contains works less known, including Lev Kogan�s dances and songs rooted in Jewish music, Corrado Saglietti�s suite for horn and a string quartet and three small pieces for solo horn. The fifteen member ensemble is made of great soloists and chamber music players. Many of the compositions are presented here for the first time in newly created arrangements. The album is full of energy and masterful performances and undoubtedly it shall become an event of the year, not only within Czech music scene.

The foremost Czech cellist Jirí Bárta brings a complete recording of Bach’s cello suites. With this new album he returns to the same repertoire which he recorded 23 years ago, but enriched with life experience and offering a new interpretation. This time he has recorded all the suites on a baroque cello with gut strings and thus has come closer to the possible original sound; expressivity has been superseded by meditation and peacefulness. Bárta approaches the set of compositions as a six-movement symphony (“I remember the time when I performed the suites for the first time years ago. It felt like an epiphany: the individual suites materialized for me in a definite shape as a symphony in six movements, as a story of life in six chapters, as a perfectly logical and thoroughly structured large composition.”). Bárta spent a long time studying the material and preparing the new interpretation and recording which has the aspiration to become the classical-music event of the season.

On its eponymous album, "Blue Shadows" consists of four musicians with different musical backgrounds. Cellist Jirí Bárta is a virtuoso known in the world of classical music, an excellent drummer Martin Novák plays with Lenka Dusilová, Jana Kirschner and David Doružka, versatile guitarist Josef Štepánek performs and records with many artists of alternative and pop music, and guitarist Petr Ostrouchov is known mostly as a composer of film music (with five nominations for the Czech Lion award), and from his former long-term participation in the band Sto zvirat. The project of their joint album arose naturally from their last year’s collaboration on recording of the score for the Czech TV miniseries "Blue Shadows". Each of the musicians contributed to the album with his original abilities and the diversity of their individual musical careers has become an advantage: the result seems to be a natural sum of their diverse musical experiences and skills. The album, mixing genres and influences covered mostly by the term "americana", i.e. american acoustic music, country, jazz and folk music, is in its majority an instrumental one and consists of recordings of compositions mostly scetched in the course of recording. Guest vocalist James Harries is featured in two songs, including the title song "Blue Shadows" from the TV miniseries of the same name.

Nikol Bóková is known as a classical pianist with a repertoire stretching from the Baroque period to contemporary music. Her first album of her own music inspired by jazz, classical music, minimalism and, in some respect, popular music, has been recorded in the traditional jazz-piano-trio line-up and the pianist's musical partners in this project have been talented exponents of the young jazz generation: Martin Kocián on the double bass and Michal Wierzgon on the drums. Nikol Bóková's compositions are perfectly polished miniatures, simple in form but echoing the harmonic and melodic complexity of classical piano literature. Indeed, Bóková's play, defined to a great extent by her experience with classical-music interpretation, her brilliant technique and dynamic keystroke, is unique in the world of the jazz piano. In her compositions, Nikol Bóková effortlessly travels between genres, clearly fascinated by the possibilities they have to offer.

Saxophonist, clarinettist, composer and visual artist Marcel Barta entered the Czech jazz and improvisation scene while still a student and has since become one of it's core members. He is a founding member of the electro-jazz quintet MUFF, the cult jazz sextet Vertigo and the duo DoMa Ensemble. Besides collaborating with many foremost artists from different genres on the home and international scene, he has been dedicating himself to composition, writing scenic music for the theatre company Farma v jeskyni (Farm in the Cave), among otherprojects. He is the recipient of multiple Czech Music Academy Awards in the jazz category, having also been nominated for the same award on a number of occasions. While Episodes from the Spinning Ball is the first recording to feature Barta's work exclusively, the eponymous composition is his first piece for a large ensemble. As composer and arranger he has taken part in dozens of projects and recordings, many of which were released by the label Animal Music. The new album brings a recording of a concert performance featuring the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, which took place as part of the jazz-symphonic crossover series New Horizons in February 2025 in the DOX+Multifunction Hall in Prague. Composed on a commission from the orchestra, the work formally resembles a suite in three parts. It is performed, however, as a continuous flow of music. In the author's own words, the piece "is an attempt to evoke a story that reflects my own planetary experience. The rotating ball in the title is a geoid, the shape of our own planet." Combining composed music with improvisation, the piece bears traces of Barta's original style, known for example from his work for Vertigo or Muff. It is rooted in jazz and contemporary classical music and unfolds like an elaborate story in which densely composed soundscapes interweave with delicate melodies and fine-grained instrumentation and whereorder coexists with improvisation and melancholy passages alternate with psychedelia and humour. The jazz band in the recording features, alongside Marcel Barta himself, trombonist stepan Janousek, keyboardist and synth player Vojtech Prochazka, double bassist Milos Klapsteand drummer Jan Chalupa. The whole jazz-symphonic ensemble is conducted by Bastien Stil who has had ample experience leading crossover projects.

Saxophonist, clarinettist, composer and visual artist Marcel Barta entered the Czech jazz and improvisation scene while still a student and has since become one of it's core members. He is a founding member of the electro-jazz quintet MUFF, the cult jazz sextet Vertigo and the duo DoMa Ensemble. Besides collaborating with many foremost artists from different genres on the home and international scene, he has been dedicating himself to composition, writing scenic music for the theatre company Farma v jeskyni (Farm in the Cave), among otherprojects. He is the recipient of multiple Czech Music Academy Awards in the jazz category, having also been nominated for the same award on a number of occasions. While Episodes from the Spinning Ball is the first recording to feature Barta's work exclusively, the eponymous composition is his first piece for a large ensemble. As composer and arranger he has taken part in dozens of projects and recordings, many of which were released by the label Animal Music. The new album brings a recording of a concert performance featuring the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, which took place as part of the jazz-symphonic crossover series New Horizons in February 2025 in the DOX+Multifunction Hall in Prague. Composed on a commission from the orchestra, the work formally resembles a suite in three parts. It is performed, however, as a continuous flow of music. In the author's own words, the piece "is an attempt to evoke a story that reflects my own planetary experience. The rotating ball in the title is a geoid, the shape of our own planet." Combining composed music with improvisation, the piece bears traces of Barta's original style, known for example from his work for Vertigo or Muff. It is rooted in jazz and contemporary classical music and unfolds like an elaborate story in which densely composed soundscapes interweave with delicate melodies and fine-grained instrumentation and whereorder coexists with improvisation and melancholy passages alternate with psychedelia and humour. The jazz band in the recording features, alongside Marcel Barta himself, trombonist stepan Janousek, keyboardist and synth player Vojtech Prochazka, double bassist Milos Klapsteand drummer Jan Chalupa. The whole jazz-symphonic ensemble is conducted by Bastien Stil who has had ample experience leading crossover projects.

Eviyan is a new acoustic trio ensemble co-founded by famous Czech singer, violinist and current US resident Iva Bittová, guitarist and composer Gyan Riley (son of Terry Riley), and bass-clarinetist, composer and producer Evan Ziporyn, who co-founded Bang On a Can ensemble and has collaborated with many notable artists. Nayive, the trio’s first studio album, comprises the members’ acoustic compositions and improvisations. The pieces are sophisticated yet very fresh, rooted in the folk as well as minimalistic and classical traditions, with the natural sounds painting a very colorful image.

Concept Art Orchestra is an occasionally performing Czech big band comprised of first class Czech jazz musicians, led and conducted by trumpetist/composer Štepánka Balcarová. Their album, The Prague Six, contains six first-time recordings of contemporary compositions by the young Czech composers who formed the group of the same name, the majority of them also ranking among the band’s members. Large original compositions lie at the border of jazz and classical music, using all expressive possibilities and orchestral interplay, as well as the improvisational skills of its individual members.

100 YEARS or, "The Country at One Hundred" is a large suite, a collective work of the Prague Six, the composers concentrated around the Concept Art Orchestra big band. The composition originated as a tribute to the one hundredth anniversary of the foundation of Czechoslovakia in 2018 and consists of six parts in which the authors allude to various periods in the history of the Czechoslovak and later Czech Republic, with originality and energy typical of the big band. Štepánka Balcarová, Jan Jirucha, Luboš Soukup, Martin Brunner, Tomáš Sýkora and Vít Krištan each have authored one of the six movements in which they make full use of all the orchestration possibilities offered by a big band, expanding these with non-traditional instruments such as Ondes Martenot, the chimes or Moog synthetizer. The individual compositions also include sensitive references to period music and samples and citations from political speeches. The fourth movement, dedicated to the period of the so-called normalization in the 1970s and 1980s and based on the motives of a song by The Plastic People of the Universe, features a special guest, the saxophonist Vratislav Brabenec. This, already third recording by Concept Art Orchestra on the Animal Music label confirms the indisputable place of the band (the holder of the 2015 Andel Award for the best jazz album of the year) on the current big-band scene and testifies to their capacity to create original works rooted in the current musical and historical context as well as perform them to the highest professional standards.

Trumpeter and composer Štepánka Balcarová, known from the successful quintet “Inner Spaces” and as the leader of the progressive big band “Concept Art Orchestra” (for the albums of both she has received the „Angel“ award for the jazz album of the year), has compiled her first solo album from her own compositions made on poems of the Polish poet Julian Tuwim (1894-1953). Tuwim´s poems seem to be very simple and plain, but each of them carries many deep thoughts as well. And the congenial music can be described the same way. Balcarová has invited Polish singer Malgorzata Hutek and the band made of fantastic Czech and Polish players (Jaromír Honzák, Marcel Bárta, Robert Fischmann, Nikola Kolodziejczyk and Grzegorz Maslovski) to record with her.

The pianist and composer Beata Hlavenková is a respected authority on the Czech musical scene. She has been known above all as a musical partner of the famous singer Lenka Dusilová – in the Baromantika and Eternal Seekers projects – and as co-author of a great number of Dusilová’s songs, but also thanks to her own albums and collaboration with various local and international artists. The author’s new project, “Bethlehem”, mostly comprises new arrangements – or re-compositions – of traditional Christmas songs of the Czech, British, Polish, German and French provenience, but also a handful of Hlavenková’s own compositions, all in the author’s solo piano performance. The Christmas carols recast into new original form and combined with the author’s clearly discernible style bring profound aesthetic experience.

Guitarist and composer David Doružka, a leading and awarded representative of the Czech jazz scene, whose activities go beyond Czech borders, comes with his new album "Autumn Tales" almost ten years since his previous album "Silently Dawning", although in the meantime he obviously worked on dozens projects of other artists. The album, recorded in trio with acoustic rhythm section, contains mainly David's original compositions, but for inspiration and repertoire, however, he also used sources of Jewish music, oeuvre of Bohuslav Martinu and Czech interwar popular jazz.

The phenomenal French-horn player Radek Baborak comes with a new album (his second on Animal Music) featuring music by the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, in arrangements that were tailor-made for his eleven-member ensemble which unites foremost Czech and international players. Piazzolla's music - which listeners all over the world know as a one of the purest expressions of "tango nuevo"- does not feature French horn. Radek Baborak, however, continues on his pioneering mission of an arranger and a performer of Piazzolla's work in atypical line-ups. The role of the bandoneon - traditionally the carrier of the Argentine-tango sound - is here taken over by the French horn, the bass clarinet, violin and piano. Baborak thus succeeds in reaching his desired aim, which is not to sound as one of the many "revival bands" of Piazzolla's own legendary quintet. Instead, the arrangements let the music itself stand out and they highlight the masterful invention of Piazzolla who was able to combine in his compositions great expressivity and exulted passion with melancholy and humbleness. All those qualities remain at the heart of the interpretation by Radek Baborak Orquestrina while they are taken to a whole new level in this recording based on perfect harmony and vigorous interpretation.

In the year of the centenary of Ástor Piazzolla’s birth, an album comprising some of the renowned composer’s best-known compositions in the style of the Argentine tango is released by the conductor and phenomenal horn player Radek Baborák. The album’s release on 11 March 2021 marks what would have been Piazzolla’s one hundredth birthday. Coincidentally, Radek Baborák, who has completed his pioneering journey as an arranger of Piazzolla’s work with this album, celebrates his birthday on the same day. The album has been recorded in collaboration with Radek Baborák Orquestrina, an ensemble composed of foremost soloists and chamber players. Its variable line-up is adjusted according to the needs of individual projects which mostly consist of tailor-made arrangements of music originally composed for other instruments. Baborák’s wish to extend the repertoire for the French horn through such arrangements eventually brought him to Ástor Piazzolla. In collaboration with the arranger Tomáš Ille and having received consultations from the famous violinist Fernando Suárez Paz who had been member of Piazzolla’s acclaimed Quinteto for ten years, Baborák introduced his first, original arrangements of Piazzolla’s music in 2014, on the debut album of his ensemble. In 2019 he dedicated an entire eponymous album to Piazzolla, also recorded by Orquestrina. The characteristic sound of tango, provided by the bandoneon, is produced in Baborák’s arrangements by the French horn, bass clarinet, violin and piano. Together with his colleagues, Baborák has expanded the catalogue of sounds and sound effects available for the performance of Piazzolla’s music, including rapping on the French horn, slaps performed on bass clarinet, prepared piano, glissandos, imitation of the sound of cicadas, sirens and others. Performing Piazzola’s music, the members of Orquestrina often incorporate improvised cadenzas, fixed improvisations and make free with Piazzolla’s typical ornamentation.

Iva Bittova newest release with the Prague Philharmonia is a sweeping and sonically ample project featuring older and newer compositions from Bittova's repertoire arranged for symphony orchestra. These include pieces created in tandem with Pavel Fajt (Periny/Feather Duvets), Vladimir Vaclavek (Zvon/The Bell, Uspavanka/Lullaby, Sirka v louzi/A Match in a Puddle, Zeleny venecek/Green Wreath), with the bands Dunaj (V cernem/In Black) and Cikori (Zapiskej/Whistle), works within her solo projects (Paraskeva, Elida), as well as a new piece (Vetvicka/Twig).

The album Excursin Animato is a live recording of a unique project that Irena and Vojtech Havel, and the experimental-ambient duo Kora et le Mechanix, performed at the Alternativa Festival in 2006, created specifically for this festival. Here, the Havel couple for the first time combined their fragile, meditative music with electronics, which they had purposefully avoided until then (and even after). The album Excursin Animato is dedicated to the memory of the exceptional musician Vojtech Havel, who died a year ago. He and his wife Irena had been working together since the 1970s, recording a number of albums that mixed elements of European minimalism with Baroque and Eastern traditions. The depth and unpretentiousness of their expression have won them loyal fans at home and abroad and inspired many artists across genres. For their latest album Four Hands (Animal Music, 2024), they received the Czech Music Academy Award. The duo Kora et le Mechanix, formed by Michal Kor�n and Filip Homola, is celebrating 20 years of existence this year. They have established themselves as one of the most interesting electronic ambient projects in our country. The starting point of the collaboration with the Havel couple was their debut album Excursin (2006). The electronic compositions of Kora et le Mechanix (electronics, sampler, synthesizer, vocoder) are combined with the fragile world of acoustic music of Irena and Vojtech Havel (viola da gamba, cello, piano, and Tibetan bowls). The album Excursin also has a remix version, Excursin Forte (2007), featuring some of the most remarkable artists of the Czech and Slovak electronic scene. Excursin Animato thus concludes this trilogy.

Krasa Quartet, a young ensemble specializing in music by Jewish authors from the Terezin Ghetto, are releasing their debut album, with compositions by Hans Krasa, Erwin Schulhoff and Karel Ancerl. Krasa's Theme with Variations and his String Quartet, Schulhoff's Divertimento for String Quartet and Ancerl's Two Student Fugues all come from early stages of these composers' careers, before the political events in the aftermath of the First World War drastically affected their lives. In 2012, four young musicians who met during their studies at the Prague Conservatory decided to found their own ensemble. The members of Krasa Quartet - Marie Forestova, sarka Petrikova (first violin), Jan Paloucek (second violin) and Daniel Menhart - were then of similar age as these authors would have been while working on their early compositions. Now, having gained experience performing at festivals in Czechia and abroad and participating in master classes (Pavel Haas Quartet, Hagen Quartet), the quartet are relaesing their debut album. Besides quartet classics, such as, for example, works by Ludwig van Beethoven, the ensemble's repertoire encompasses 20th-century music, with special emphasis on works of Hans Krasa and other Terezin authors. Krasa Quartet regularly collaborate with foremost instrumentalists, including pianists Jan Bartos and Marek Kozak, as well as with choirs and dance ensembles. For several years, the ensemble performed as part of the ballet production Vertigo at the National Theatre in Prague.

Vladimir Misik is back with a new album, Vteriny, mesice a roky (Moments, Months and Years). The album is Misik's third collaboration with the producer Petr Ostrouchov and follows the prize-winning projects, Jednou te potkam (Once, I Will Meet You; 2019) and Nocni obraz (Night Image; 2021). The album is comprised of fifteen new songs, with lyrics by Vladimir Misik and Michael zantovsk�, songs based on poems by Jan Skacel, Jiri Dedecek and Frantisek Gellner, and one text tailored directly for Misik by Tomas Belko, a one-time fellow band-member of Ostrouchov in Sto zvirat. In the studio, Misik surrounded himself by ten musicians, with the Blue Shadows quartet at the core, which also performed on the previous recordings, featuring Josef stepanek and Petr Ostrouchov on the guitar, Matej Belko on the bass guitar and Martin Novak on the drums. The other players include pianist Jan Steinsdorfer and Hammond organist Ondrej Pivec (now living in the USA), who both were involved on the album Nocni obraz as well, guitarist Lukas Martinek, double bassist Tomas Liska and two special international guests - the Cuban-American percussionist Michito Sanchez and the British performer on the pedal steel guitar B.J. Cole - who both have featured in projects of illustrious colleagues such as Sting, Rolling Stones, Elton John, Depeche Mode, Crosby, Stills and Nash, James Taylor, David Gilmour, R.E.M., Bjork, Stevie Wonder, and others. The album is released on CD and as a 2LP and includes a comprehensive booklet with studio session photos and the lyrics.

String Serenades by Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) and Josef Suk (1874-1935) have become a stable part of the repertoire of Czech chamber string orchestras, providing them with an opportunity to prove their performing mastery, and are very popular with the listeners. This album is a re-edition of the recordings by the Czech Chamber Orchestra from 1994 (Dvorak) and 2000 (Suk) that were released in 2001 by WALDMANN label. Along with it's re-release on CD by Animal Music it is now being released also on streaming platforms for the first time. "In their pieces, Dvorak and Suk both drew on the older form of classical serenade, a kind of musical diversion in the best sense of the word, a form that reached the peak of it's popularity a century earlier as it was performed for the entertainment of the musicians and their music-loving audiences alike," says the musicologist Vaclav Holecek in the album's liner notes. This recording was made at a time when the Czech Chamber Orchestra performed under the leadership of the conductor, violinist and composer Ondrej Kukal (b. 1964). During his tenure, the orchestra was experiencing it's heyday. Interpretatively and dramaturgically, he followed the principles of the orchestra's founder, Vaclav Talich, who founded the orchestra in 1945 with some of his best students from the Prague Conservatory. Thanks to it's rigorous rehearsal routine and precise as well as enthusiastic approach to performance, the orchestra soon won a renown on the Czechoslovak stages and abroad, and collaborated, under Talich's baton, with foremost international soloists, including Pierre Fournier, Germaine Leroux, and others. The initial phase of the orchestra's promising career came to an end in 1948, when the Czechoslovak Communist regime banned Vaclav Talich from performing in public. In 1958, Josef Vlach (1923-1988), the first violin of the original Czech Chamber Orchestra and Talich's student and collaborator decided to revive his teacher's initiative. Under Vlach's leadership, the ensemble appeared on stages in Czechoslovakia, across Europe, Asia and America, and was a regular guest at prestigious festivals, including the Prague Spring Festival and the Salzburg Festival. Collaborations with soloists included Henry Szeryng, Yehudi Menuhin, Leonid Kogan, Ivan Moravec, and Josef Suk, to name just a few. After Josef Vlach's demise, the Czech Chamber Orchestra performed on irregular basis for some time. Nevertheless, the new first violin, Vlach's daughter, violinist Jana Vlachova took over the artistic leadership of the orchestra and also followed in the steps of her father and Vaclav Talich before him. Vlachova invited artists of her own generation into collaboration, among them the conductor, violinist and composer Ondrej Kukal (b. 1964) who became the orchestra's next leader. Under his leadership between 1993 and 2003, the Czech Chamber Orchestra maintained a regular concert calendar once again. After Ondrej Kukal gradually curtailed his conducting career due to a serious illness (he currently dedicates himself fully to composition), the conductor Andreas Sebastian Weiser collaborated with the orchestra. Today, the Czech Chamber Orchestra performs on special occasions only.

Trobairitz (female troubadours) is a cycle of songs for women's choir and ensemble, written by the contemporary Czech composer and pianist Michal Nejtek for the Tiburtina Ensemble based on the texts of medieval troubadours who lived and composed at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries in Occitania. Barbora Kabatkova, the artistic director of the Tiburtina Ensemble, encountered the troubadours' poetry years ago while working on another project. The hitherto unknown world of female poets fascinated her and inspired her to study further, and after receiving an offer from the director of the Prague Spring festival to premiere a new full-length work with her ensemble, she did not hesitate to revive the forgotten world of female troubadours. In the short historical period of the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, women in the area of ?today's southern France enjoyed an unprecedented freedom and rights, and it is from the period of 1180 and 1230 that most of the poems of medieval troubadours survive. Although they were most likely originally set to music, as was the custom at the time, troubadour poems survive without music, with one exception. On this recording, they therefore appear in a new, contemporary musical form and offer the listener the opportunity to look into the world of medieval female poets, into the feelings, wishes and desires that they express in their texts, albeit tender and warm, often more directly and concretely than men. Four poems are sung on the recording in Occitan and four in Czech translation. The Tiburtina Ensemble is accompanied by leading period instrument players of international renown - Marco Ambrosini (nyckelharp), Margit ubellacker (dulcimer) and Catalina Vicens (organetto), and one of the most sought-after Czech drummers, Martin Novak. The 50-minute long work premiered in 2022 at the Prague Spring Festival and is being released in it's world premiere on this recording.

Vladimir Misik is back with a new album, Vteriny, mesice a roky (Moments, Months and Years). The album is Misik's third collaboration with the producer Petr Ostrouchov and follows the prize-winning projects, Jednou te potkam (Once, I Will Meet You; 2019) and Nocni obraz (Night Image; 2021). The album is comprised of fifteen new songs, with lyrics by Vladimir Misik and Michael zantovsk�, songs based on poems by Jan Skacel, Jiri Dedecek and Frantisek Gellner, and one text tailored directly for Misik by Tomas Belko, a one-time fellow band-member of Ostrouchov in Sto zvirat. In the studio, Misik surrounded himself by ten musicians, with the Blue Shadows quartet at the core, which also performed on the previous recordings, featuring Josef stepanek and Petr Ostrouchov on the guitar, Matej Belko on the bass guitar and Martin Novak on the drums. The other players include pianist Jan Steinsdorfer and Hammond organist Ondrej Pivec (now living in the USA), who both were involved on the album Nocni obraz as well, guitarist Lukas Martinek, double bassist Tomas Liska and two special international guests - the Cuban-American percussionist Michito Sanchez and the British performer on the pedal steel guitar B.J. Cole - who both have featured in projects of illustrious colleagues such as Sting, Rolling Stones, Elton John, Depeche Mode, Crosby, Stills and Nash, James Taylor, David Gilmour, R.E.M., Bjork, Stevie Wonder, and others. The album is released on CD and as a 2LP and includes a comprehensive booklet with studio session photos and the lyrics.

The new album of double bassist and composer Jaromir Honzak is a live recording of an eight-part suite for jazz quintet and orchestra performed by the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra and Honzak's all-stars Czech jazz quintet, composed of David Doruzka (guitar), Lubos Soukup (saxophone, clarinet), Vit Kristan (piano, rhodes), Martin Novak (drums, percussion). The suite was performed within the concert series of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra "New Horizons" which combines jazz and symphonic music. The suite entitled "Blues of a String Hanging in the Wind" was written by Jaromir Honzak and based on the composition of the same name, which he created back in 2008 for a string and jazz quartet on the occasion of a special Jazz concert at the Rudolfinum. A year later, it appeared on Honzak's studio album "Little Things" (Animal Music, 2009). Tomas S�kora, pianist, composer, arranger and curator of the New Horizons programme, was in charge of the arrangements for the orchestra. Jaromir Honzak says about the piece: "I have never been drawn to a large cast in music before, I have always been a type of chamber musician. So here I said to myself that I will try to think as "chamberly" as possible when working for a symphony orchestra. As usual, I first decided to learn from listening to similar works, or even to study some scores, but in the end my usual routine prevailed, based rather on my intuition. Our subsequent cooperation with Tomas was very efficient and pleasant. Tomas was great not only as an unusually skilled and fast orchestrator, but also as an empathetic and helpful assistant." Jaromir Honzak gave the individual parts suitable names that are meant to help the listeners grasp the music. The atmosphere and storytelling of the album, which arises when listening to the music, is also evoked by the artwork of the Japanese artist Kotone Utsunomiya, which she created specifically for this album. The author of the graphic design is Andrea Vacovska from Studio Najbrt.

Zdenek Liska Archives is a project aimed at releasing a sequence of vinyl records featuring a selection of original recordings of film music by this important Czech composer, from his personal audio-tape archive. The first album of the collection contains music from three short films by Jan svankmajer from 1966 to 1977 - Don sajn (Don Juan), Leonarduv denik (Leonardo's Diary) and zvahlav aneb saticky Slameneho Huberta (Jabberwocky). Out of a total of ten short films by svankmajer, which Zdenek Liska provided music for, the recordings of these three films have been preserved in his home archive. In the album's booklet, Jan svankmajer highlights Liska's brilliant film-composing skills: "What was amazing about Liska's music was that, unlike most other composers, he didn't attempt to go with the mood of the film and milk the emotions but listened to the rhythm of the movie itself. Especially in an animated film, this helped to greatly enhance the sense of the picture's pace and drama. He was able to discover rhythms in films that even their authors weren't aware of." The album is released in the year of Jan svankmajer's 90th birthday. The work of this exceptional surrealist artist is represented by a retrospective exhibition presenting works by Jan and Eva svankmajer in the Central Bohemian Region Gallery or a program section dedicated to his film work in the Dafilms online cinema.

Star pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard presents Landler, a collection of delightful dances composed by Franz Schubert. Rustic and cheerful, these miniatures display a fascinating side of Schubert's musical persona. Their simplicity is deceptive, as these dances are frequently shaken up by Schubert's harmonic wandering soul, yet remaining lyrical, picturesque and tuneful. For Aimard, there is a kinship between Schubert's Landler and Kurtag's Jatekok, pieces that he often performs side by side, sharing a combination of playfulness and Modernism that also calls the great twentieth-century miniaturist Anton Webern to mind. By avoiding almost any repetition, Aimard evokes a sleepwalker's journey rather than a series of dances. 8717306260343 PNTA5187034.2 44281755 .00 17.99 .16 PENTATONE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 05/24/2024 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/42/4327442-3147656.jpg 53 1 N GRIEG / ABRAVANEL / UTAH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PEER GYNT SUITE NO. 1, OP. 46 PEER GYNT SUITE Maurice Abravanel's recordings of Grieg's orchestral music with the Utah Symphony set the benchmark for these works in the mid-1970s. Newly remastered from the original tapes these classic Vox recordings now sound better than ever. The Elite Recordings for Vox by legendary producers Marc Aubort and Joanna Nickrenz are considered by audiophiles to be amongst the finest sounding examples of orchestral recordings. 747313303984 VOX3039A.2 44281946 .00 19.99 .21 VOX COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 05/24/2024 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/61/4327461-3148435.jpg 10 1 N OLNEY,DAVID REAL LIES 011671120423 PHIO1204.2 37985028 .00 15.99 .19 PHILO RECORDS COMPACT DISCS POP FOLK/AMERICANA/SINGER-WRITER 01/01/1997 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/33/4331633-3407111.jpg 2 1 N BERLIOZ / ZINMAN / BALTIMORE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE 089408027123 TLAC80271.2 37753337 .00 15.99 .24 TELARC COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 09/05/2008 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/09/4332309-3407212.jpg 2 1 N SCOTTO,RENATA ITALIAN OPERA ARIAS 074646052426 SNY60524C.2 38090790 .00 17.99 .19 SONY SRM EXCLUSIVE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CLASSICAL VOCALS 08/30/2012 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/65/4333465-3177768.jpg 2 1 N RUSSIAN MUSIC & REVOLUTION: 1890-1917 / VARIOUS RUSSIAN MUSIC & REVOLUTION: 1890-1917 / VARIOUS 074646169926 SNY61699C.2 38091933 .00 17.99 .18 SONY SRM EXCLUSIVE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 03/29/2013 3 1 N TOTAL ECLIPSE / O.S.T. TOTAL ECLIPSE / O.S.T. 074646203729 SNY62037C.2 38092466 .00 17.99 .19 SONY SRM EXCLUSIVE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL SOUNDTRACKS & FILM SCORES 03/29/2012 1 1 N WEILL / STEVENS,RISE / GREEN,ADOLPH / KAYE,DANNY LADY IN THE DARK 074646286920 SNY62869C.2 38092930 .00 17.99 .23 SONY SRM EXCLUSIVE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL SHOWTUNES / B'WAY 08/31/2012 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/78/4333478-3177780.jpg 1 1 N BOSTON POPS / WILLIAMS MUSIC FOR STAGE & SCREEN 074646414729 SNY64147C.2 37572198 .00 17.99 .21 SONY SRM EXCLUSIVE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 11/07/2013 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/84/4333484-3177809.jpg 1 1 N ALVAREZ,MARCELO / LICITRA,SALVATORE DUETTO Duetto presents tenors Marcelo Alvarez and Salvato re Licitra in a program of romantic ballads writte n and arranged specially for them. One of the feat ured composers on the album is Francesco Sartori, known for having composed Andrea Bocelli's biggest hit songs. 696998795723 SSRM87957.2 38099311 .00 7.98 .25 SONY SRM EXCLUSIVE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CLASSICAL VOCALS 06/24/2003 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/86/4334086-3177982.jpg 0 1 N SAYAO,BIDU SINGS DEBUSSY MOZART PUCCINI & MORE 074646322123 SSRM63221.2 38093227 .00 17.99 .25 SONY SRM EXCLUSIVE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL OPERA / OPERETTA / ORATORIO 05/13/2014 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/01/4334101-3177808.jpg 4 1 N MOZART / TAFELMUSIK / TOLZER BOYS CHOIR / WEIL REQUIEM 074646076422 SSRM60764.2 38091391 .00 17.99 .25 SONY SRM EXCLUSIVE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CLASSICAL VOCALS 08/30/2012 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/13/4334113-3177771.jpg 0 1 N CHOPIN / MENDELSSOHN / PROKOFIEV / GOULD PIANO SONATA 3 074645262222 SSRM52622.2 37569464 .00 24.99 .25 SONY SRM EXCLUSIVE COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 04/30/2012 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/29/4334129-3177976.jpg 1 1 N ANTAL,MATYAS / CONCENTUS HUNGARICUS / JANDO,JENO MOZART: PIANO CONCERTOS NOS. 17 & 18 4891030502055 NXS8550205B.2 44315344 .00 19.99 .24 NAXOS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 04/01/1990 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/41/4334141-3178023.jpg 0 1 N RAKSIN,DAVID SUITES FROM LAURA & FOREVER AMBER 078635149029 RCMA1490.2 44315887 .00 17.99 .22 RCA MASTERWORKS COMPACT DISCS POP EASY LISTENING 07/01/1991 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/94/4334394-3384330.jpg 0 1 N BEETHOVEN / ROSAND VIOLIN SONATAS 047163350320 VOX3503.2 38240966 .00 35.99 .42 VOX COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CHAMBER MUSIC & RECITALS 01/01/1995 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/73/4334573-3178009.jpg 78 1 N ZIMMERMANN / ROYAL PHIL ORCH / BERGLUND TCHAIKOVSKY: VLN CTO / BRUCH: VLN CTO 5099709312922 SYNX093129.2 37573652 .00 17.99 .26 SONY MASTERWORKS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL ORCHESTRAL & SYMPHONIC 04/21/2011 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/99/4334899-3492576.jpg 22 1 N KERMES,SIMONE DRAMMA 886919639629 SYNX1963962.2 38110849 .00 17.99 .23 SONY MASTERWORKS COMPACT DISCS CLASSICAL CLASSICAL VOCALS 07/31/2012 https://mediacdn.aent-m.com/prod-img/500/06/4334906.jpg 3 1 N AHMEDOVA / EILERTSEN / PETURSSON HLASKONTRABASOKTET - KALEIDOSCAPES The unique musical formation Hlaskontrabas Oktet, consisting of four female singers and fourdouble bassists, releases a new Nordic" album called Kaleidoscapes. The album, which wasrecorded last summer in Iceland and then in the fall at Sono Records studios in the Czech Republic, takes the listener on a musical journey through landscapes that are mysterious, fragile, wild and beautifully melancholic. The nine compositions have been written directlyfor Hlaskontrabas by leading contemporary composers from Norway (Mats Eilertsen, Nilsokland), Iceland (Ragnheidur Grondal and Gudmundur Petursson, Petur Thor Benediktsson), Israel (Adam Ben Ezra) and the Czech Republic (Petr Wajsar, Beata Hlavenkova). Ridina Ahmedova and Petr Tichy, the founders of the band, also contributed each by one piece to thealbum. Ridina says about the recording: "Often you record one instrument at a time, but wechose the path of playing together, live. This way the record gives the listener the right 'live' feeling." Hlaskontrabas Oktet was formed in 2019 as an extension of the original duo project foundedby Czech vocalist, composer and performer Ridina Ahmedova and double bassist and composer Petr Tichy. At the very beginning of the idea to expand the duo to four voices and four double basses was the idea to use live musicians instead of a looper, which Ridina and Petr used to layer tracks over each other in concerts, and to bring their own musical soul to the songs. But it turned out that writing pieces directly for the octet offered the opportunity to arrange and think musically in a completely different way. And the octet soon started to live on it's own. A vibrant, unique and inspiring life. The song Funkle, which was released as the first single, was also accompanied by a documentary video from the octet �s journey to Iceland. The second single, which will be released on April 12, is the track Mysterious Ride by Israeli double bassist Adam Ben Ezra.