The International Folklore Festival in Písek was founded by Milan Bečka, MD. Thanks to his enthusiasm and also to the energy of the forty members of our Písečan Group the event became one of the greatest folklore events in the Czech Republic. Every summer Písek becomes a place of this extraordinary cultural experience.
Groups from abroad and from all parts of the Czech Republic perform on stage and also in the streets. Spectators can meet with various cultures, folklore dances, customs and arts. Every year the organizers come up with novelties to improve the festival. The spectators from Písek grew fond of the International Folklore Festival and more than 3,000 come every year to watch.
The Kutná Hora International Music Festival is one of the most important chamber music festivals in the Czech Republic. The creator of the dramaturgy and the selection of artists is the artistic director - cellist Jiří Bárta.
Unfortunately, even this year 2021 is associated with covid uncertainty. Last year we managed to hold the festival, albeit on a shifted date, with drapes and all hygienic measures. We all hope and believe in the improvement of the situation, and that is why we are preparing another, already the 14th year of the Kutná Hora festival.
MFKH has become an inseparable part of cultural events in the city with high attendance from all over the Czech Republic and abroad. Since we could not invite foreign artists last year, we decided to move the performance of all of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas in Konstantin Lifschitz's masterful interpretation to this year. This very significant work of art will be divided into 8 evenings. This increases the total number of chamber music concerts to 16 concerts. We believe that not only for Kutná Hora, this festival will be something truly exceptional this year. In addition to this important project, compositions of classical chamber literature by world-famous authors (Haydn, Mozart, Vivaldi, etc.) will be heard, as well as contemporary and rarely mentioned authors (Tartini, Barber, Kabeláč, Klusák, Górecki, etc.).
Jiří Bárta traditionally connects chamber music concerts and complements them with projects at the crossroads of genres. He included Bach's cantata Ich habe genug (I already have enough of everything) in the program of the 14th Kutná Hora festival for solo bass, oboe and strings connected with an epic poem by Arnošt Lustig performed by Vilma Cibulková, Jiří Lábus and Vilém Udatný entitled "Cantata - Dance of the Mad". The theme of the musical-lyrical band is death as liberation from a world permeated with misery and despair and is an indictment of the most horrific crime in human history.
The Obscene Extreme festival, shortened as OEF, is an annual music festival in the Czech Republic, that focuses on extreme metal subgenres grindcore and death metal, as well as hardcore punk. It was found in 1999 as a birthday party by Miloslav "Čurby" Urbanec. It was described by Vice as "Europe's craziest grindcore party". It is noted by the Czech Radio for its "exceptionally tolerant and friendly atmosphere". The festival offers exclusively vegetarian and vegan food within its premises since its inception.
Several well-known metal bands have performed at OEF over the years, such as: Napalm Death, Possessed, Obituary, Sodom, Immolation, Grave, Suffocation, Vader, Incantation, Terrorizer, Exhumed, Asphyx, Morgoth, Brujeria, Sinister, Nuclear Assault, Hirax, Vital Remains, Eyehategod, Krisiun, and Municipal Waste to name a few.
The Pardubice Music Spring International Festival has been an important cultural event in the East Bohemian region since 1978. Since 2013, the festival has been organized by Barocco semper giovane, o.p.s. The festival offers music of all stylistic periods, the genre is mainly focused on classical music. Approximately twenty concerts take place every year from the beginning of March to the middle of May in concert halls and monuments of the city of Pardubice and other cities in the region. The festival presents important domestic and foreign artists, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestras, opera and ballet ensembles.
Since 2013, they have performed at the Pardubice Music Spring, for example, the Prague Symphony Orchestra. Prague FOK, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, PKF - Prague Philharmonia, Pardubice Chamber Philharmonic, Collegium 1704, Ensemble Inégal and Barocco semper giovane with conductors Heiko Mathias Förster (Germany), Shalev Ad-El (Israel), Petr Altrichter, Václav Luks , Adam Viktora, Tomáš Brauner, Jan Kučera, Marko Ivanović, Marek Šedivý, opera ensemble of the FX Šalda Theater Liberec, ballet ensembles of the Slovak National Theater and Moravian Theater Olomouc, Wihan Quartet, Herold Quartet, GUITAR4MATION - Guitar Quartet (Austria), Five Star Clarinet Quartet, Ciganski diabli (Slovakia), Ondřej Havelka and his Melody Makers, Prague Cello Quartet, Guarneri trio, Smetana trio, violinists Giuliano Carmignola (Italy), Václav Hudeček, Josef Špaček, Jan Mráček, Jiří Vodička, Leoš Čepický and Pavel Šporcl , cellists Jiří Bárta and Tomáš Jamník, pianists Ivo Kahánek, Piers Lane (Great Britain), Igor Ardašev, Adam Skoumal, Jitka Čechová, Nozomi Nakagiri and Yuka Beppu (Japan) , harpsichordists and organists Stéphane Bécha (France), Shalev Ad-El (Israel), Jaroslav Tůma, Aleš Bárta, Pavel Svoboda, further eg flutist Yoshimi Oshima (Japan), clarinetist Ludmila Peterková, trumpeter Oliver Lakota (Germany), tenor Štefan Margita and Petr Nekoranec and many other artists.
