2024-07-20 11:45:12
Visitors to this year’s Colors of Ostrava festival will hear a new song by guitarist and singer Miroslav Žbirka, who died in 2021. Artificial intelligence was involved in the final version of the unfinished material from the artist’s estate.
“Meky Žbirka, the legend of Czech-Slovak music, did not have time to finish work on the album in progress. However, his fans can look forward to the release of a new single. Her name is Nora and she was born with the help of artificial intelligence,” announced Irena Zatloukalová from the creative laboratory Fameplay, who the project stands.
The song will premiere this Wednesday, July 17, on the Meltingpot discussion forum, which is part of Colors of Ostrava. The song will then be released by Universal Music.
The singer’s wife Kateřina Žbirková and their son David Žbirka also participated in its completion. The author of the text of the new song is the contemporary Slovak poet Daniel Hevier. Miroslav Žbirka only managed to record a demo version on a mobile phone. “Thanks to artificial intelligence, we cleaned it up and David made the final arrangements for the single. I thought it was interesting to try a similar approach as recently used by The Beatles,” says Kateřina Žbirková. The British band ended in 1970, but only last year its two remaining members Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr published the last song called Now and Then.
The Colors of Ostrava festival starts in Dolní Vítkovice this Wednesday, July 17. The main star will be the American singer and guitarist Lenny Kravitz. In the industrial area of Dolní Vítkovice, he will also perform songs from the recently released album Blue Electric Light. Hitmaker Sam Smith will also perform, on the other hand, rock legend Queens of the Stone Age refused to participate due to health reasons, so guitarist Tom Morello will arrive in her place. 70 foreign bands and several dozen domestic performers will perform on seven festival stages.
Video: Miro Žbirka was a role model throughout his career. He was proud to be half English, says Bezr (11/10/2021)
“Žbirka was also accepted by the audience at rock concerts, where he was not perceived as exotic, even though he was a pop legend,” said music journalist Ondřej Bezr on DVtv. | Video: Daniela Drtinová