2024-08-02 21:56:38
A surprise for hard music listeners will be the performance of the leading Czech black metal group Cult of Fire at this year’s Brutal Assault festival, which will begin next Wednesday, August 7. With the orchestra led by conductor Martin Šanda, he will pay tribute to Bedřich Smetana. This will happen on the occasion of this year’s 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
Cult of Fire, who are one of the few Czech black metal groups that have established themselves on an international scale, will be accompanied by the Bohemian Symphony Orchestra Prague. The worlds of classical music and black metal intersect for the first time at Brutal Assault. “They will play a unique set specially prepared for this festival,” announce the organizers of the event, which focuses on the extreme branches of heavy metal and will, as usual, take place in the baroque fortress of Josefov in Náchodsk. Last year, including artists and service, about 20,000 people arrived there.
The performance of Cult of Fire will be based on new compositions directly or indirectly inspired by Smetana. It is music composed by multi-instrumentalist Vladimír Pavelka and arranged by Martin Šanda for band and orchestra. “For example, I did arrangements of Z české luh a hajů in a metal version,” Šanda mentioned some time ago.
This will not be the only collaboration of this group with someone from the rock scene. At the September festivities in Nové Jičín, the Bohemian Symphony Orchestra Prague will accompany rocker Vilém Čok. “Orthodox rockers don’t really like such connections, but it’s about gaining fans. In the long run, it would probably spoil the band’s image, but as part of trying to come up with something new, it’s good,” Čok thinks.
He has already played with the Czech National Symphony Orchestra as a member of the Prague Selection. “It will be something different, because with Vízber I didn’t sing, but played the bass guitar. Now I gave a nod to something different, it’s a new experience. I wanted it to be original, and I gave myself the condition that I would sing something that determined my musical career,” continues Čok.
On September 6, he will sing four songs with the symphony in Nové Jičín – the hits of his solo career Na václavskym Václavák and Ó hory, ó hory plus the cover songs Black Night from Deep Purple and Anarchy in the UK from the Sex Pistols repertoire. “Rock and punk, two opposites that have determined my direction. That will be smoke,” the musician rejoices.
The Bohemian Symphony Orchestra Prague, headed by chief conductor Šanda, is also waiting to perform with the Slovak group Elán, which has many fans in the Czech Republic.
The two concerts announced at the end of the year in Prague have recently been joined by a third planned for February 7, 2025. Elán will also be accompanied by Czech symphonists. “Their producer congratulated me that the Bohemian Symphony Orchestra Prague are the first symphonists to whom after fifty-five years the leader of the group, Jožo Ráž, gave way and after listening to the arrangements for the songs Kaskadér and Dresy, he gave the green light to the project,” mentions Martin Šanda.
At such concerts, he enjoys it when someone comes as a pop or rock listener, but leaves as a symphony orchestra fan. “We are trying to reach the widest possible spectrum of listeners in that slightly ‘unset’ form. With the help of light chorography, we are trying to make it as lively as possible for people, so that they can see that they don’t just have to sit in a concert hall,” says Šanda.
“We play at festivals, we accompany different bands, we want to get as close as possible to the listeners. The point is that the music is always the same. It’s the same chords, the same keys and notes. It’s beautiful to see what has evolved from old composers, whether it was Bach, Mozart or Beethoven, combined with rock and pop,” he thinks.
This year, the group already performed in Prague’s Obecní dům, where they accompanied singer Michal Penko and his band Poetika, or in the O2 universe with the project Rock in Symphony: The Epic Symphonic Show. Members of the British rock band Uriah Heep, singer Bernie Shaw and guitarist Rick Box performed there. In addition to Uriah Heep’s hits, cover versions of songs by bands such as Deep Purple, Metallica and Led Zeppelin were performed.
Bohemian Symphony Orchestra Prague was founded by Martin Šanda in 2002. Since then, he has collaborated with the famous Spanish opera singer José Carreras or the vocal groups The Tenors, Il Volo and violinist Vanessa Mae, singer Sarah Brightman and Michael Bublé, a three-time winner of Grammy awards. The ensemble has performed many classical concerts in Europe as well as tours in Japan and China.
Video: My music even moves me. In my dream, a squinty dog is wearing it, says the Bert & Friends singer (18/06/2024)
The concert itself can even make me cry, Albert Romanutti, frontman of the Czech band Bert & Friends, said in the Spotlight program. | Video: Team Spotlight