India, despite it’s rich heritage, remains a white spot on the music map.

28. 9. 2024 | Categories: Articles,Interviews

[Petr Dorùžka, Krems, Austria] Music enterpreneur Ankur Malhotra explains: The reason is favoritism and classism. There are millions spent by billionaires on weddings rather than be used to support the musicians via grant systems. Malhotra represents some of the best Indian folk and roots musicians who perform on major festivals worldwide. Barmer Boys play spiritual Hindi and Muslim songs from the Rajasthani desert. 77-year-old Lakha Khan is the last living sarangi violin master. His music ranges from ragas to Sufi chants and epic chants.

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The musician who refuses to be fashionable

1. 9. 2024 | Categories: Articles,Interviews

[Petr Dorůžka, Praha] After 42 years and 14 albums, Lo’Jo still sound like a group of visionaries from another world. Their roots go back to the punk rock era, but you can’t hear it in their music. Also, Lo’Jo is untouched by French musical stereotypes. If you hear a chanson track, it’s shifted into a distorted Tom Waits perspective.

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Discovering Finnish music, 1971-2024.

26. 6. 2024 | Categories: Articles,Interviews

[Petr Dorůžka, Praha] In Finland, tradition is practiced as a living process and not as a museum exhibit, due to many dozens of creative musicians and educators. One of the first entrepreneurs to bring Finnish music to the world stage was Phillip Page. Already charmed by Finnish LPs as a DJ and record shop manager in the US, he moved from Texas to Helsinki in 1987. Since that time, he worked with artists such as JPP, Maria Kalaniemi, Värttinä, Kimmo Pohjonen and others, introducing them to audiences around the world.

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Frank Zappa and Prague

12. 5. 2024 | Categories: Articles

[Petr Dorůžka, Los Angeles, California] Lecture and screening on Frank Zappa and Prague at the Czech Consulate in Los Angeles, 10 May 2024. You might find it strange, that a person from a faraway, non English speaking country, talks about Frank Zappa in his home city Los Angeles. So – I should explain a few things in the next hour, with a help of a documentary film about Zappa’s visit to Prague and his meeting with president Havel.

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Hiram Salsano: Bringing new life to the old songs from Campania.

15. 2. 2024 | Categories: Articles,Interviews

[Petr Dorůžka, Praha] How would collectors like Béla Bartók or Leoš Janáček work if they lived today? Endangered traditions that they managed to capture have definitely disappeared in some regions, but they still live elsewhere. Hiram Salsano was born in Agropoli, a seaside resort 120 km south of Naples. Since 2005, she has been visiting rural farms in the interior and recording the songs of the oldest living witnesses.

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Mehmet Polat’s  ud serving as a bridge between East and West

1. 2. 2024 | Categories: Articles,Interviews

[Petr Dorůžka, Praha] The ud, one of the most common instruments in the Middle East, is considered to be the forerunner of a whole host of stringed instruments, including the European guitar. Unlike the guitar, it does not have frets and therefore is not limited by European scales. Besides Arab countries, a number of excellent players live in Turkey, Israel or Armenia and, thanks to the migration in recent decades, also in Europe. The instrument has gained respect in jazz thanks to musicians as Anouar Brahem from Tunisia, who records for ECM, or Rabih Abou-Khalil from Lebanon.

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Best of 2023

29. 12. 2023 | Categories: Best of Year

[by Ken Hunt, London] Medical stuff prevented me working on Martin Carthy’s biography, Prince Heathen as much as I’d hoped in 2023. In July the first, post-surgery turning-point was getting to experience the Rudolstadt Festival for the first time since Petr Dorùžka and I went together in 2019. The next in late November was Peggy Seeger and me talking as part of the MOTH Club’s all-day event Celebrating 75 Years of Folkways Records.

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Balkan music through American eyes and ears

4. 11. 2023 | Categories: Articles

[Petr Dorůžka, Praha] Shaun Williams started to explore East European music as a humanitarian volunteer in Ukraine 15 years ago. Currently he is working on Roma music in his doctoral thesis, and as an accordionist he formed an ensemble with Romanian singer Corina Sîrghi. The full name of their group is Corina Sîrghi și Taraful Jean Americanu.

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Fira Manresa 2023: Old Alleys, New Sounds

17. 10. 2023 | Categories: Articles,Live reviews

[by Martha Hawley, Haarlem] The Fira Mediterrània was held in October 2023 for the 26th time, in celebration of Catalan traditional and popular culture, accompanied by performance and artistic contributions from around and across the Mediterranean. The pace of the festival is determined by the topography of its base in the hills north of Barcelona, in Manresa, all on an incline, very appealing to this visitor from the Lowlands.

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Best of 2022

25. 12. 2022 | Categories: Articles,Best of Year

Intensive treatment for cancer prevented me working much on Prince Heathen – The Age of Carthy and England’s Folksong Revival for most of 2022. I resume work on Martin Carthy’s biography in 2023. The upside was spending much of the year thinking about and challenging what I had already written.

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