We can look forward to a very rich program ranging from classical music to ethnic music to a musical this year too. In the field of crossover the festival will offer, for example, the PaCoRa Trio, which will invite the listeners to a dynamic ride across folk music and jazz together with singer Linda Ballová. Other highlights in the crossover field will be the performance by the Hungarian ensemble Gypsy Virtuoso Orchestra, which will perform not only iconic pieces inspired by Hungarian culture (e.g. Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, Hungarian Rhapsody by Franz Liszt or Monti’s Czardas) but also music from Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning film Schindler’s List.
The offer of crossover productions also includes the unique orchestral formation founded by the concertmaster of the Slovak Philharmonic Jarolím Emmanuel Růžička The Classical Music Maniacs. This nonconformist ensemble prepared a program titled Bach Goes Samba and Tango or Bach with Trainers or Bass Guitar, in which it combines baroque music with Latin American rhythms in an interesting way. What musical content can we imagine under this title and what can we expect? “You can imagine fantastic classical music, predominantly baroque, with jazz and a very exotic tinge of music performed by one of the most important Brazilian percussionists living in Europe, Luis Ribeiro. Simply a combination of exotic music and Bach. We presented the program recently and met with great response in Slovakia so I hope that the listeners in Český Krumlov will be impressed in a similar way,” says the bandleader of the ensemble Jarolím E. Růžička. The orchestra consists only of top musicians, classical and jazz, and its objective is to address the broadest possible audience and present classical music in a different way. They will perform, for example, Bach’s Concerto in D Minor, the enchanting 1stmovement from Bach’s 3rd orchestral suite in D Major called Air and the famous turbulent Presto (Summer) from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
The musical genre also returns to Český Krumlov. Top singers from the musical stages in Prague Bára Basiková, Ilona Csáková, Leona Machálková, Petr Kolář, Jan Kříž, Václav Noid Bárta and Pavel Vítek will perform the most popular melodies from Czech musicals and Czech musical films in a program titled Homage to Czech Musicals. But this is by no means all the space dedicated to Czech music. The Czech Evening, which will take place in the Brewery Garden in Český Krumlov, will be dedicated to traditional national musical performances including performances by the brass band Jižani (“The Southerners”), Mladá dudácká muzika Strakonice (“Young Bagpipe Music Strakonice”), Cimbálová muzika Jiřího Janouška (“Jiří Janoušek’s Dulcimer Music”), Gustav Brom Czech Radio Big Band and the highlight of the evening will be the performance by phenomenal Vojtěch Dyk with the jazz Josef Buchta’s B-side Band, whose program consists of swing, melodic blues, lyrical and rock ballads but also hard rock, funky, compositions with electronic elements as well as disco.