{"id":4811,"date":"2013-06-05T12:58:55","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T19:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/?p=4811"},"modified":"2013-06-05T17:02:06","modified_gmt":"2013-06-06T00:02:06","slug":"vaclav-klaus-impresario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2013\/06\/vaclav-klaus-impresario\/","title":{"rendered":"V\u00c3\u00a1clav Klaus, Impresario"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ud\u00c3\u00adlen\u00c3\u00ad<\/a>Imagine the president of the United States regularly presenting jazz in the East Room of the White House; that is the level of recognition V\u00c3\u00a1clav Klaus gave the music. President of the Czech Republic from 2003 to March of this year, Klaus succeeded the Republic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first president, V\u00c3\u00a1clav Havel. He hosted 90 monthly concerts known as Jazz na Hrad\u00c4\u203a<\/em>, at the Prague Castle. This 2011 Rifftides<\/em> post<\/a> reports on one of the events. Here on the left, we see Klaus with the Czech pianist Emil Viklick\u00c3\u00bd, who served the president as adviser to the series. <\/p>\n

This is from a 2005 Rifftides<\/em> post:<\/p>\n

From the web site of San Francisco\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Commonwealth Club of California comes a transcript containing what may be the most unexpected question ever asked the head of a country in a public forum. The club\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s speaker last November was V\u00c3\u00a1clav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic. At the end of a question and answer session covering the European Union, Turkey, Iraq and the nature of elections in his post-Communist nation, this was the exchange:<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> If you could be any jazz pianist, who would you be?<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> I will never be a jazz pianist in my life. Nevertheless, I think that jazz music for us is very important, and I must say that in the early 1960s, the beginning of jazz clubs in the Czech Republic, in Prague, was part of the culture of revolution which brought about the 1960s and the Prague Spring and all of that \u00e2\u20ac\u201c so jazz plays a very important part in our lives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now that Klaus has left office, the series at the Castle has ended, but Klaus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interest in jazz has not. In his blog Prague Jazz<\/em>, Tony Emmerson discusses the transition to a new location.<\/p>\n

New President Milo\u00c5\u00a1 Zeman has not continued with Jazz na Hrad\u00c4\u203a<\/em> but the concept, the logo, some of the organisers and the man himself have relocated. Under the title of Jazzov\u00c3\u00a1 KLAUSura, the new concert series kicked off at the Autoklub \u00c4\u0152esk\u00c3\u00a9 Republiky with American flute and tenor sax maestro Lew Tabackin.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To read all of Emmerson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s report, go here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Jazz na Hrad\u00c4\u203a<\/em> presented not only Viklick\u00c3\u00bd, Mraz and other heroes of Czech Jazz but also the occasional visiting American band. Last October, it was the quintet led by trumpeter Dave Douglas and saxophonist Joe Lovano with Lawrence Fields, piano; Linda Oh, bass; and Joey Baron, drums. Their pieces included “Body and Soul.”<\/p>\n

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