Lenka Dusilová
The journey of the singer and composer Lenka Dusilové to today’s music with Baromantika band was unusual and unique. At the turn of the millennium, Lenka was a strong figure within the Czech pop-rock mainstream. Nevertheless, in years of personal maturation she decided to leave from mainstream music entertainment to a more personal and layered style. The result is surprising: favour of the majority audience has not lost, and, at the same time, she became an icon of brave, innovative pop. Stylish openness and player’s erudition is framed by Lenka´s unmistakable vocal performance.
Lenka Dusilová has won six annual Anděl awards (Czech equivalent of Grammy). On the stage she has been active for sixteen years, attracting attention from her energy, experience, and excellent vocal. As a guest of the band Lucie she supported Rolling Stones (1995) in the giant Strahov stadium in Prague.
She entered her mature period with the album Mezi světy [Between the worlds] (2005) recorded in San Francisco, which was released also in the US version. Songs began to be more dynamic, had drawn from many styles, making good use of Lenka´s tension between extroversion and introversion. Dusilová left security of the Czech scene and set out for a long overseas tour from Alaska to California. Her searching for new collaborators, who would share her vision of stylish open songs, resulted in the album Eternal Seekers (2008). She recorded it together with a clarinet quartet Clarinet Factory with post-minimalistic, in places Reich sound. Above all, however, in Eternal Seekers Dusilová met with the composer and pianist Beata Hlavenková. Their collaboration has been lasting lasts to this day.
Beata Hlavenková graduated from the University of Massachusetts in fields of composition, jazz composition, and arranging. After jazz projects ( S’aight & Vertigo Quintet: victory in the international competition Montreaux Jazz Festival, 2005) she joined Lenka Dusilová. Today their common synergy of female experience and artistic vision significantly forms music of Baromantika. Personal songwriting embraces electronics, tribal beats, experience of jazz musicians as well as elements of the current composition and dubstep.
Baromantika as a super band of author personalities (Patrick Karpentski, Viliam Beres), today speaks its own musical language, which moves in warm and cold acoustic-electronic landscapes. Passion and impulsiveness of Dusilová, who often seems not to perceive the surrounding world when being deep in her song, is uniquely balanced by sophisticated, often collectively created music.
Lenka Dusilová keeps her distinctive approach across artistic categories. In separate solo performances she experiments with a loop machine and extended large vocal techniques. With a dance theatre company Spitfire Company acts live in the performance One Step Before The Fall (2012, still in the repertory), awarded with the Herald Angel Award and other prestigious awards in several countries. (Author: Pavel Klus)
Discography:
Lenka Dusilová & Baromantika: V hodině smrti (2014)
Lenka Dusilová & Baromantika: Live at Café v lese (2013)
Baromantika (2011)
Eternal Seekers (2008; Lenka Dusilová & Beata Hlavenková & Clarinet Factory )
Lenka Dusilová: Mezi světy (US version) (2006)
Lenka Dusilová: Mezi světy (2005)
Lenka Dusilová: UnEarthEd (US version) (2004)
Lenka Dusilová: Spatřit světlo světa (2002)
Lenka Dusilová: Lenka Dusilová (2000)
with group Pusa: Pusa (1996)
with group Sluníčko: Sluníčko (1994)
ProART Festival 2018
Plzeň, 13. 7.
Brno, 22. 7.
Valtice, 25. 7. (only concert)
Musical-vocal creative workshop (How creates Lenka Dusilová)
I. Examining your own musical boundaries and desire for independence
II. Searching for a common voice wave
What to expect from time spent with me? If you dream of your own path to musical independence, or are searching for your own musical language and expression, I will be happy to share with you my experience. I will try to briefly familiarize you with your musical journey and world. I will let you look into my simple, yet functional technical “kitchen” or method of creation. Do not expect from me any compositional or technically sophisticated knowledge, but rather an intuitive experiment and improvisation with no guarantee, which sits rather well with my personality.
I would like to sing with you. Because some of my compositions are born thanks to a loop station, we would try together to reconstruct certain voice parts, to sing them and pull the whole thing into a shape with which we can be satisfied. Those who feel up to it can perform in one of those compositions in an evening concert taking place the
same night of the workshop.
This type of gathering will be an entirely new experience for me, and I believe that through communicating together, you and I both will learn something new. Thank you.
**Note.: The workshop is open to musical explorers and seekers having had some basic singing and musical experience.