Ondřej Havelka
After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, he took up television scriptwriting and direction. He has created three theatre musicals as a director and in 2004 he directed opera Nagano in the National Theatre by Martin Smolka and Jaroslav Dušek.
Ondřej has been deeply involved with singing, dancing and tapping jazz and popular music of the 1920s and 1930s since the time he was a young student. He has recorded six albums with the Original Prague Syncopated Orchestra, and wrote and co-directed a musical film for this band. At the 1991 Montreux festival of television entertainment, this film was awarded a Silver Rose.
In the role of the scriptwriter, singer and director, he recorded a series of three clips in 1995. One of them won the 1995 Czech Grammy award as the Clip of the Year. MTV-Latin bought and broadcast another clip, Jingle Bells. Also in 1995, Ondřej started his own swing big band, Melody Makers, and has been performing with it since. The Czech Grammy Academy awarded the Jazzman of the Year title to him in 1996. Dearest hobbies: golf and swing.
Use of authentic musical instruments, a pious access to reconstructions of authentic arrangements and systematic studies and assumption of contemporary interpretation techniques bring unhoped-for and winsome results in terms of authentic sound, which we know from contemporary records and films.
Melody Makers
The orchestra consists of 15 musicians - 14 instrumentalists and 1 soloist:
Petr Tichý - guitar, band master | Jiří Pípa Novák - jazz-band | Miroslav Lacko - piano | Petr Vlášek - contrabass | Michal Krása - trumpet | Jiří Patócs - trumpet | Jan Buňata - trumpet | Michal Plecitý - trombone | Pavel Jordánek - altsaxophon, clarinet | Martin Tříska - altsaxophon, clarinet | Jan Tříska - tenorsaxophon, clarinet | Bedřich Šmarda - tenorsaxophon, baritonsaxophon, bassaxophon, clarinet | Petr Vyoral - violin | Jiří Sládek - violin
Karel Košárek
Graduated from the P.J. Vejvanovský Conservatory of Kroměříž and continued with his studies under Professor Valentina Kameníková at the Prague Conservatory and then he entered the Prague Academy of Performing Arts.
In 1991, on the basis of a successful international audition, Karel Košárek received a four-year scholarship from the Southern Methodist University of Dallas (USA). There he studied under the excellent Dr. Harris Crohn and Professor Joaquin Achucarro. He completed his studies in the United States in 1995 receiving the Artist Certificate and the degree of Master in Music. Karel Košárek has won a number of international piano competitions. Recitals given in the past seasons in New York, Dallas, Palm Beach, Calgary, Tel Aviv, and St. Peretsburg, and appearance in concerts in Japan document Karel's international musical involvement. He has also appeared at several music festivals in Czech Republic. Karel Košárek has also been involved in chamber music performance - he appeared together with the violinist Josef Suk at the Hradčany Festival, and performed Dvořák's Piano Quintet in A with the Panocha Quartet. He has frequently cooperated with the mezzo Magdalena Kožená. Karel Košárek included to his debut album Piano pieces from Bedřich Smetana, Bohuslav Martinů, Samuel Barber and George Gershwin.
