On Thursday, a concert under the open skies was planned in the beautiful Kooperativa Garden. The ensemble Pacora Trio played author’s compositions and together with Slovak soprano Linda Ballová also a few Jewish songs.

“Český Krumlov is a fairytale town. We had a good feeling from playing here, the atmosphere was pleasant, great audience. We came with quite a new project – I have been performing with the Pacora Trio only for the last two years. But before I had sung with a klezmer band and then I dedicated myself more to opera,” said Linda Ballová, who shone for example as Mařenka in The Bartered Bride or Milada in the opera Dalibor and last year sang together with José Cura at his very first concert in Bratislava,  after the concert. And why did the Pacora Trio, whose repertoire includes compositions on the borderland among different genres, especially jazz and folklore, decide to play klezmer? “Our harpsichordist Marcel Comendant comes from Moldova and it is interesting that Balkan music has many elements in common with klezmer, they even take over each other’s compositions. That’s why our author’s music and klezmer, which Linda sang, fit in perfectly.” How was the Pacora Trio born and how did its unclassifiable style which defies all categories develop? “The Pacora Trio has been active for ten years already. Initially we played only in two with Marcel, whose dulcimer play is very specific, nobody plays like that in Slovakia. We approached contrabassist Róbert Ragan later. Our style developed gradually, we liked jazz, then we also tried to include folklore elements. Marcel brought Romanian folklore but we combine it with Slovak folklore. We also include jazz improvisations and a little bit of classical music. But we like each of these genres. And what word would describe our style? Probably – goulash…” joked violinist Stanislav Palúch at the end.