Colours of Ostrava is an international, multi-genre music festival organised annually in Ostrava since 2002. In 2012, the festival was moved to the entrancing surroundings of Dolní Vítkovice – an area that used to belong to metallurgical works, mines and ironworks. We are a free and independent festival for free and independent artists and festivalgoers. We don’t subscribe to any genre and are only open to showcasing sensitive, dynamic as well as uplifting projects with a similar philosophy to our own.
Czech Music Crossroads is an international conference and a showcase festival. An international platform attended by the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and a guest country. Carefully selected bands focusing on local roots, acoustic music, folk, fusion and jazz perform for international audience of invited professionals, promoters and journalists. Two best groups will be awarded The Czech Music Crossroads Award.
The showcase selection is not restricted to new talent, but aimed in general at artists who can easily cross the language barrier, regardless of the length of professional experience. The bands are selected by experts of each corresponding country.
Exporting music is the focal point of the conference, which also includes discussions about present-day musical or social topics. Experts from around the world will train musicians and showcase performers from the participating countries at interactive workshops on how to win recognition in the international competition; they will also provide practical advice for their musical careers. International producers, music reviewers and experts in music distribution will act as lecturers – those with long-term experience in distributing Czech recordings on the international market. Speed dating is another activity typical for international events. International experts and/or festival organisers can be consulted by registered local artists or managers at one-to-one meetings to receive advice on strategy and artistic growth.
The Karel Ditters International Music Festival from Dittersdorf is a festival that has been held every year since 1993, mainly in the town of Javorník, partly in the town of Jeseník and its surroundings. During this time, it has become an integral part of the cultural autumn of the entire Jesenice region. It is also one of the most significant and significant projects implemented within the Olomouc Region, and its existence thus clearly proves that lively cultural activity does not escape even its northernmost region. Its annual implementation is provided by the Karel Ditters Association of Dittersdorf.
And so every autumn is traditionally carried in the spirit of Baroque sophistication, with which Karel Ditters is undoubtedly closely connected and whose work the entire festival is actually primarily dedicated to. The central idea of the whole festival is an effort to present classical music at the highest professional level to all residents of our border region, as well as to professional audiences. However, Ditters' name is not just a kind of "moral-musical regional authority" in the name of the festival, on the contrary, every year of the festival the compositions of this author appear in the repertoire of many musical ensembles, which is also one of the festival's conditions. Another is the effort to open the festival stage to young and beginning performers, often the winners of the Prague Spring or other competitions. Last but not least, it is also an effort to invite, as, after all, in the name of the festival, musicians from abroad, or at least musical ensembles with the representation of foreign performers, to the festival days.
In the next ten years, Haydn's music festivals intend to present the work of the main musical "nations" or regions within the individual festival years, which contributed to the formation of classicist musical language, which soon established itself as a universal musical language used worldwide. This dramaturgical principle will significantly enrich the existing principles (focus on compositional anniversaries, regional musical sources, great major works of the classicist era). The intention of the organizers is to dedicate 40-50% of the festival's concert performances to musical "nations".
Italy has a decisive position among these nations. Therefore, the 29th year of the festival (2021) will be dedicated to Italian and Italian-inspired music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Italian musical inspiration has dominated world music for more than three centuries, culminating in the period of classicism (16th - 19th centuries). It was the Italian composers at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries who formulated a new way of compositional work, based on more intensive work with musical material. Thanks to this, new musical genres saw the light of day in the Italian environment, which then dominated the next centuries (concert, symphonies, etc.), some others then gained new developmental inspiration (sonata, opera, etc..).
