Hradišťan

www.hradistan.cz

Cymbalo band Hradišťan belongs to the oldest and most famous Moravian cymbalo bands. It was established together with a dance group in 1950 in Uherské Hradiště. Since then many generations of musicians, singers and dancers, who worked under the longtime leadership of Jaroslav Václav Staněk, changed in Hradišťan. He by his creative attempts shifted then understanding of presentation of folklore from free performing of musical and dance turns towards more subtle compositions, that already lived up to the standards of the artistic work.

Since 1978, Jiří Pavlica has been the primas and the artistic leader of Hradišťan, he even more deepened creative work with folklore. Under his leadership the ensemble was gradually beginning to transform. Today Hradišťan is a unique musical body with uncommonly wide genre variability and unconventional repertoire. The dramaturgy doesn`t draw only from the regional context but it is also noticing folk art in its wider geographical and historical relations.

Roman Ravin (Brno)

http://kristalovykabinet.unas.cz

In 1999 Roman Ravin and Mirkha Moksha founded a medicine man gallery called Crystal Cabinet in Brno. They have been focused on items, aids and objects that are helping with tuning the mind – feeling the soft energies beyond common sense perceptions, it’s conscious buffering, meditation, and that are leading to contemplative conditions of consciousness. Under activities of Crystal Cabinet there started a tradition of so called „vibration evenings“, which used to be a not binding meditative meeting in a tea-room, with drumming, singing and basing. It all arised by itself. Because of that, in 2000 they crated the name for these evenings: Swayambhu (in the beginning called in czech „Svajambu“), which means “by itself created, naturally tuned emitter. And they created a frame structure of the ritual.

From the friends of Crystal Cabinet was then created a group of players and singers, that on some performances in Brno had even ten members. Nowadays, above all out of Brno, they perform only three from technical reasons. The two founders with a member from Prague: Adam Tabris. Aliquot singing, tibetian bowls, bells, gongs, cymbals and drums they used only for meditation, but in the present times, is the band performing sometimes in more open way, to the wider public, but it is still not hardly established songs and pieces. The Swayambhu group is trying to create impovizated stream sounds and rhythms, inspired only by the conscious knowledge of present moment.

SWAYAMBHU musicaly-meditative performance

Common purificatory and transforming ritual, during which you can try the strengh of your breath, overtone singing and magical and healing tones of tibetan bowls, refreshed by shamanic drums. So prepared room helps to common meditation or relaxation and relaxes the mind to the flow of soft energies.

Feng-jűn Song

www.fengjunsong.cz

She is presented as an above-genre singer. She was brought up in the north China, from the early childhood she studied Peking opera. She became a longtime individual student of Mrs. Sang Chuej-Min, the follower of the Sang school, one of the four most important schools of female actor type of Peking opera.

Since 1985 she has been living in Prague. She is a graduate from the FFUK in Prague and the Doctor of Philosophy.

It is very difficult to classify vocal performance of Feng-jűn Song according to the conventional categories. Her vocal range varys from alto to soprano. She interprets authentic folk songs from different places in China, Tibet, Mongolia and songs of other eastern nations and ethnics.

Muziga

www.muziga.mineral.cz

• Helena Vedralová – violin, barytone violin, viola, singing
• Jiří Vedral – guitar, mandoline, kobala, flutes, singing
• Jan Dvořák – contrabass
• Cécile Boiffin – xylomarimba, percussions, singing

Helena and Jiří Vedral are graduates from the Department of Music of the Faculty of Pedagogy at the Palackého University in Olomouc. They have experience with various musical genres – classical music, folk and jazz , since 1992 they work mainly with interpretation and adaptation of Moravian (mainly Wallachian) folklore (currently in the MUZIGA group) and lately also folk music from other continents (with Chinese singer Feng-jün Song). From their adaptations there is felt respect to the original form of the songs on the one hand and on the other hand inspiration by the musical material that leads them to more and more typical and stylishly nonclassifiable production, in which a folk song is inspiration and a doorway to even wider areas of their own music.

Dagmar Andrtová-Voňková

is a folk singer with original guitar playing technique and excellent music and lyrics („Carpathian balads“). She is gradually turning away from folk music towards more extensive mood compositions with elements of minimalism.

It is as if the music and lyrics of Dagmar Andrtová originated right from her heart and her belly. Her voice, raw and soul-spiced, springs at the best moments from her throat as a natural phenomenon. We can admire similarly gifted Ida Kellarová, Iva Bittová and to remind the verve of Radůza, her invocation "blow, the wind, blow“. But when Voňková sings about her causing the death of Jánošík, none would believe that she in fact did not do it.

Transcendental Harmonics

www.petropava.com/trans.htm

An association of lovers of ethnic music and throat singing (Arabic, Mongolian, Tibetan way + fusion), dance and music that energizes and harmonizes the body and spirit. The group partially follows the philosophical tradition of yogins, native shamans and sufists and their credo, that the main life mission is always to create pleasure.

Perform:

2x harmonica, various percussions, throat singing, flute, shalm, synthezators.

Shirah

The group SHIRAH is formed by a couple Libor and Sylvie Moštěk, who come from Moravia and have been singing together since the times of their studies when they met each other. They have been devoted to Jewish music for more than five years. Under the name of SHIRAH (in Hebrew: a song) they have been performing for two years and they orientate themselves at the traditional spiritual songs of the Jewish nation.

We learnt that music is a gift from God that is miraculous and magical.As Zohar says, the saint book of the Jewish mysticism: „In heaven, there are chambers that can be opened only by a song.“ It is necessary to add, that not by any song. But Jewish spiritual songs have this ability. For Izraelis, music developped a position somewhere between heaven and earth – a singer was not only an entertainer. Due to him deeper mystical contexts showed to the audience.

In repertoire of Shirah there are traditional Hebrew and Sephard songs in the ladino language, comming from various parts of Jewish dispersion. They are sabbath, wedding and festive songs and various musicalizations of the original liturgical text. The program is guided by a spoken word introducing the origin of the songs and translation of the text to the audinence. Despite the more or less „chamber“ cast, Shirah are able to present their music with a lot of energy.

With Shirah perform:

• Libor Moštěk – singing, acoustic guitars, baglama saz
• Sylvie Mošťková – singing, djembe, percussions
• Daniel Sopko (as a guest) – djembe, percussions

Vlastimil Marek

www.baraka.cz/baraka/marek)

musician, musictherapist:

The groups Extempore, Elektrobus, Amalgam, MCH Band, he also played with Jakub Noha (folk music), Zdeněk Hrášek (jazz), Emil Pospíšil (Indian music, a programme „Will sitar survive the year 2000?“), he organizes weekend and summer workshops and gives classes in meditation, shamanic singing and playing Tibetan bowls.

Tashi Deley (Praha)

http://tashideley.euweb.cz

The Civic Association Tashi Deley is a music and production group, engaged in aliquot singing and exploring new improvisated vocal forms. They arrange concerts, workshops, gatherings and produce appearances and seminars for other artists from Bohemia and Europe.

The group is created by twelve people of different age and set, with common interest in music, singing, and technique of aliquot singing. They use the voice techniques of old India, Tibet, Tuva and Mongolia. All the singers modulate color of their voice and let it sound to its individual harmonical essences (aliquots). They create this way seemingly two tones simultaneously. The style of music that Tashi Deley makes, belongs to meditative, spiritual, ethnic or comprehensively: alternative music. Tashi Deley uses as well a lot of alternative music instruments (drums, didgeridoo, srutibox, brumles, tibetian bowls) for modelling the expression based on aliquot choir singing.

Alikvotní sbor Spektrum
(Overton choir Spectrum)

www.e-stranka.cz/alikvot

Our choir rehearsals are bit different than rehearsals of „normal“ choirs. We are not interested in the number of songs singed, but we try more to have even the essential sound we produce pleasant. Our „playful singing warm-up“ takes sometimes the whole rehearsal time, and we are sometimes fascinated by the sound so much, that we don't have enough time to study the songs.

We can sing the aliquot tones: most of our singers can sing the „NG“ and „BIRD“ technique. They have all learned it in our choir (the beginners has tu study approximately one year until he reaches our standard level).

We want to use the aliquot singing techniques in classical choirs. And because of that is the classical voice preparation for us maybe even more important than in the normal singing choirs. We can sing for example classical diphony together with another to voices in aliquot: The listener is confused – he perceive complete 4-voiced harmony, although he „normally“ hear just two tones. Or we can sing clear fourth, withal disonation of two aliquot tones two octaves higher, with semitone distances. And we really enjoy playing with these magic.

Took part in 2004:

Alikvotní 4 (Aliquot four)

http://music.taxoft.cz/jiri_mazanek/index.php?pg=por

• Jiří Mazánek vocals, tibetian bowles and bells, ektar
• Ondřej Rus kantele, vocals
• Igor Angelov vocals, Indic harmonium
• Přemysl Žák vocals, ethno drum

The band was created in the beginning of 1996 as a thought of connecting the european traditions with east way of music. It’s members are prime interprets of vocal music (Czech madrigalists, Chorosch, Virtus Organum, Relaxation).

They have been inspired by the aliquot singing (singing when one singer is singing two tones at the moment) of tibetian monks, Mongolian and Tuvian medicine mans and herdsman. Aliquot 4 uses as well some pre-christianic elements with infrequent music instruments from all around the world. They use them above all to support the base tone, harmony or rhythm of the common singing.

By using the technique of aliquot singing they create lots of chords, strongly acting on psychics as well as on the physic body of the listeners and either interprets. The work with energy of a sound gives the opportunity to experience an inner extasy. In longer songs can the listeners free their mind from usual formulas. This way, the space for mental relaxation and transformation of mind into higher state is opened.

Modlitba (Prayer)

Open space for finding of Content and Sense of spiritual Ways

The sense of the get-together “Modlitba” is to create common space for spiritual growing through music. Within this space we can follow the traditions again, generally live in the past but hardly noticed nowadays – the presence of the spiritual measure in music and culture, the prayer in all human doing.

Performers

On turn of the years 2000 - 2001, at the beginning of the new millenium, a group of friends from Frýdek-Místek and Frýdlant nad Ostravicí got together and founded a male vocal association Modlitba, which is a natural result of their previous spiritual activities. The content of their get-togethers is a common prayer through spiritual singing.

The organ player Přemysl Kšica was born in 1981 in Prague. He studies organ at the Prague Conservatory at Professor Josef Popelka and organ improvization at Professor Jaroslav Vodrážka. In 2000 he won a prize in an improvization contest in Opava. He plays in several Prague churches, he considers his activities mainly as service.

Gregorian chant

From the early times of the Christian era, homophonic singing was the basic liturgical singing of the Church. When during the years 590 – 604 Gregory the Great became a pope, he let to collect, partially shorten and revise all used sacral chants and so Gregory`s liturgical psalter originated, that was to become a generaly accepted norm.

Gregorian chant integrated, similarlay to the Christianity, into the European cultural environment and made a basic and unifying element of the western European music and culture for hundreds of years.

Organ mass – baroque dialogues

A baroque organ mass is an area of liturgical music, in which a dialog of the gregorian chant and organ verses happen in the form of fugues, toccats, bicinias, preludes etc. of even five voices. Organ verses are inspired by the gregorian chant, sometimes they quote it. It happens by „alternatim praxis“, it means by alternating of the organ music and the sung chant. The listener of the answer had many times sung during his life, so he very well knew, what the organ answered him. So it was a real contemplative dialogue.

Tomáš Kočko & orchestr (Morava)

www.kocko.cz

Muziga – manželé Vedralovi (Vysoké Mýto)

Avonotaj

The choir association Avonotaj was founded in Autumn of 2001. At first as project for advent concert. They sing hebraic devotional texts, faithful song of Chasids, Jewish folk „hits“. Multivoice changes are usually made by Mr. Lecturer Tomáš Novotný from University in Ostrava. They perform regularly on advent concerts in Šumperk (in 2003 together with Vladimír Merta and Jana Levitová), on private viewings with jewish topics, and on beneficial concerts. In September 2003 they supported with a concert the effort of the citizens from Krnov to safe local synagogue.

The name Avanotaj means in Hebraic „my sins“ or as well „my iniquities“

Malá hradčanská kapela Josefa Kocurka

Essential part of the former band Šlapeto will offer you an outline of Czech-Prague ethno.

Šamanský bubnovací kruh

http://samani.hyperlinx.cz/index.php?Z=3

Šamanský bubnovací kruh (The Shaman drumming ring) in is a voluntary association of people interested in shamanism. This oldest human method uses consciousness for education, cognition, healing, solving problems and keeping harmony in one’s life, in the society and in the nature.

American anthropologist Prof. Dr. Michael Harner studied shamanism for many years, he learned from medicine mans from all around the world. He has founded an organisation - Foundation for Shamanic Studies, that engages in studying and teaching shamanism in the way opened for the people from the west. The participants of the seminars are familiarised with the ideas and methods of so called „Core Shamanism“. The shaman drumming ring in Prague is founded only from the people that has already absolved at least the basic seminar „Journey of the Medicine man“.

The Shaman drumming ring in Prague engages during their meetings in shamanism for knowledge, healing, solving the problems and keeping the harmony. No drugs are used during the meetings, and participation is possible only without ingesting the drugs.