NYU Prague composition professor and award-winning jazz musician Beata Hlavenková will launch her new album Dreams (Sně) on January 23, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. in Palác Akropolis. This is Beata’s first album to feature voice as well as instrumentals, and she created it with Oskar Török; other performers include Patrick Karpentski and Dorota Barová. On December 17, Beata will also have a Christmas concert called Bethlehem at Divadlo Dobeška.
On November 7 the Czech Philharmonic performed the world premiere of Crossings, a composition by Matouš Hejl. He was commissioned by the Philharmonic to compose the piece as part of a program to nurture the talent of young Czech and Slovak composers that was created in 2012 by the world renowned conductor Jiří Bělohlávek. Matouš Hejl came into the public eye in 2016 when he was nominated for the Czech Lion Best Music award for his debut film Lost in Munich (Ztraceni v Mnichově); you can also hear his music in the recently released film Old Timers (Staříci). This semester he is teaching Sound Design with Michal Rataj and Eric Rosenzveig.
Congratulations to NYU Prague voice teacher Markéta Foukalová who celebrated the launch of her band’s new CD in the unusual venue of the Prague Planetarium. Foukalová is the lead singer of the Indie-pop band LANUGO (a Latin term for the hair that covers the body of a human fetus). The band was founded in 2006 by Foukalová with pianist Viliam Béreš, and their music is a combination of pop, jazz and electronics.