Concept Art Orchestra: 100 Years - CD

100 YEARS or “Earth of the Century“ is an extensive suite - a collective work of the composers of the Prague Six associated with the Concept Art Orchestra big band. It was created as a commemoration of the centenary of the founding of the Czechoslovak Republic in 2018 and consists of six parts, in which the authors process various periods of the history of our state with the originality and commitment of this big band. Štěpánka Balcarová, Jan Jirucha, Luboš Soukup, Martin Brunner, Tomáš Sýkora and Vít Křišťan, each of them as the author of one of the six sentences, use all possibilities of tool cast, which the bigband provides, enriched with non-traditional instruments such as Martenot waves, chime or Moog synthesizer, and they also sensitively involve musical references and period speeches of statesmen in the form of samples and quotations. The special guest in the fourth movement, dedicated to the period of normalization and based on the motif of the song Plastic People of the Universe, is the saxophonist Vratislav Brabenec. With this recording, the third on the Animal Music label, the Concept Art Orchestra, winner of the Anděl Award for the best jazz album of 2015, confirms its unmistakable place in the field of contemporary big band and the ability to create and interpret original works set in contemporary music and history.at the top level.