IRENA & VOJTĚCH HAVLOVI
10 June • MKC Kino Frosina, 20:00
IRENA HAVLOVA viola da gamba, piano, vocal
VOJTĚCH HAVEL violoncello, piano, vocal
The Czech husband-and-wife duo Irena & Vojtěch Havlovi (The Havels) have almost 4 decades of joint artistic career and partnership behind them. They started working together in the mid 80’s as part of the experimental ensemble Capella Antiqua e Moderna, a unique association of musicians whose repertoire spanned various styles of European classical music, ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary. During the years they have passed through several distinctive stages of development, traveling far and wide, through time and space. With an inventive and unorthodox approach to both historical and modern compositional techniques and interpretive procedures, the Havel’s have steadfastly developed a unique and musically autonomous language that is difficult, if not impossible, to put in a box and which continues to expand to this day. The couple have had many important collaborators in 40 years. They have participated in the birth of Czech video art (Radek Pilař), accompanied existential contemporary dance (Eva Černá and Karel Vaněk). A documentary about them was made by the celebrated independent filmmaker Vincent Moon. Bryce Dessner's composition “Little Blue Something” is a tribute to the music of the Prague duo and uses its motifs: it was recorded by the Kronos Quartet on the album “Aheym”. Musicians from The National, as well as Sufjan Stevens, are among the long-time fans of Irena and Vojtěch Havel. Their music is open and still receiving new stimuli.
