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Winning combinations

New projects highlight another inventive Strings of Autumn
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By Frank Kuznik
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
September 24th, 2008 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
One-man percussion band Martin Grubinger is the premiere performer in the festival's new "rising stars" slot.
Strings of Autumn


When: Sept. 28-Nov. 8
Where: Various venues
Tickets: 200-1,200 Kč, available through Ticketpro and at National Theater box offices
For individual concerts, see the Calendar listings; for a complete schedule and more information, check www.strunypodzimu.cz/en
For sheer variety and vitality, nothing in Prague touches Strings of Autumn. Now in its 13th year, the city’s pioneering crossover festival continues to reinvent itself, branching out musically and packaging creative combinations of performers that offer a fresh take on established genres.
“Our goal is to bring new impulses to Prague’s musical and cultural life,” says Strings Artistic Director Marek Vrabec. “We are especially interested in projects that are not mainstream and artists who haven’t played in Prague before.”
Along with shopping for new sounds and faces, Vrabec commissioned three original projects for this year’s festival. Though they all feature quality performers, they’re a bit of a gamble. Will the combinations work? Will audiences turn out for them — and like them? Vrabec is willing to take the risk because, over the years, his festival has built a loyal following that happily follows his lead into uncharted territory.
“Our audience trusts us — every year there’s a bigger ticket demand,” he says. “It’s been very satisfying, but we feel a responsibility to keep improving.”
Israeli folksinger Chava Alberstein headlines the first project (Oct. 11), in part a reprise of Lemele, an album of original Yiddish songs that she recorded in Prague two years ago with Czech musicians. Local musicologist and composer Aleš Březina, who produced the album, suggested to Vrabec that he bring Alberstein back for a concert. She is coming with her own band, but to keep that Czech flavor will be joined by two members of the popular folk rock group Čechomor.
Czech singer-songwriter Lenka Dusilová anchors another interesting mix of talent (Oct. 21 and 22), playing with jazz pianist Beata Hlavenková and the Clarinet Factory, the local quartet that Bobby McFerrin had such a good time jamming with in Prague earlier this year. That sextet is currently at work on a new recording titled Eternal Seekers, which they will debut live at the festival.
An engaging duo rounds out the commissioned projects: Jiří Pavlica, leader of the hugely popular Moravian dulcimer band Hradišťan, and Joel Frederiksen, an American-born bass singer who fronts Ensemble Phoenix, a Munich group that specializes in Renaissance and Baroque music. Pavlica and Frederiksen are putting together a program tracing parallel strains of Anglo-Saxon and Slavic music, from the 16th century to the current day (Nov. 19).
The remainder of the concerts feature the same caliber of performers, and maybe better. Moldovan soprano Irina Lungu opens the festival with her Prague debut (Sept. 28), a program of bel canto arias with the Prague Philharmonia, conducted by Michel Swierczewski. Lungu started in the east but over the past few years has been making waves at La Scala in operas like Cerevicki and Sancta Susanna. Another young classical star, violinist Julia Fischer, will show what she can do with Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, accompanied by the Württembergisches Kammerorchester (Oct. 19, sold out at press time).
From France, two standouts: Pianist Francois Couturier brings his quartet to town for a live performance of their CD Nostalghia — Song for Tarkovsky, an atmospheric elegy to the films of Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky (Sept. 30). And the amazing Les Arts Florissants troupe, led by William Christie, will stage a full-blown period production of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Baroque opera Les Indes Galantes (Nov. 1).
Finishing the festival are iridescent splashes of world music: Tenores di Bitti, a male vocal quartet from Sardinia (Nov. 5 and 6); Lebanese-born oud player Rabih Abou-Khalil, who has built a jazz trio around the traditional Arabian stringed instrument (Nov. 11); and, in the new “Rising Stars” slot of the festival, Austrian percussionist Martin Grubinger, who at the tender age of 24 has already drawn rave reviews from New York City to Tokyo for his work on the drums, marimba, vibes … you name it (Nov. 8 and 10).
If Vrabec has a knack for assembling first-rate talent, he also showed remarkable foresight in being one of the first independent arts impresarios in town to line up solid corporate backing. “Especially in this time of big problems with arts grants from the city of Prague, we are lucky to have enlightened sponsors who have supported us for many years,” he acknowledges. “Without O2 and KKCG, we wouldn’t be here.”
As for the programming, Vrabec admits, “We can never relax. Our audience expects a certain level of quality, and we have to work hard to maintain it.” This year’s lineup certainly reflects that work, to which Vrabec appends a promise: “We will never introduce mainstream events.”
Amen to that.

Frank Kuznik can be reached at fkuznik@praguepost.com


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