*12. 7. 1967
Composer
PhD from the Faculty of the Pedagogy at the Charles University. He is currently working as the editor in chief of Czech Radio Channel 3 – Vltava.
He started his musical career as a bass-guitar player with the rock band Biwoy; he also created the whole of the repertoire for the group. Musically, he quotes Frank Zappa as his model. He later incorporated some of rock music elements into his composition Hot-Suite that won the First Prize at the international music competition in Tokyo in 1990. He won more awards at the composer competitions Generation and Jihlava.
Style synthesis, fusing rock music with baroque and modern polyphony and cantilena with minimalist patterns is typical for Hurník’s work. The most ambitious among his work is the Globus Symphony for Percussion and Symphony Orchestra, written specifically for the Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie, now among repertory pieces of Brno based orchestra Dama-Dama and the musical/opera The Angels.
His music is published, among others, by Editio Bärenreiter Praha and by the Czech Radio Publishing. Lukáš Hurník also promotes music popularization in both Czech Radio and TV. His feature programme Da capo had almost 300 instalments; he co-wrote several new music elementary school and high school textbooks, he is a columnist with the Harmonie magazine and he is the author of book on music The Mystery of Music – Declassified (Tajemství hudby – odtajněno) published by Grada.
Lukáš Hurník, Petr Čenský
THE ANGELS
musical/opera
Once upon the time there was – an Angel called Asbeel. But he was not your run-of-the-mill angel as we know them from the Czech classical fairy tales for TV or film: his hormones are rebelling, he is fed up with boring sterility and reactionary attitudes of the Kingdom of Heavens and wants to achieve something big.
Asbeel is currently going through his angel conscription service on the earth. He works as a guardian angel of a young female music manager, so he has plenty of opportunities to discover things and to learn some of earthly vices. When he returns to Heaven where everybody keeps singing psalms and Antonín Dvořák’s Biblical Songs op. 99, where little angels are throwing ball at each other and where both St Cecilia and the Music Angel Israfel demand strict order, peace and virtuous life, he gets bored and causes a small riot. When St Cecilia and Israfel punish him for disorderly behaviour, it’s a straw that breaks the camel’s back. Asbeel decides to turn the tables on the Heaven and to prove only a cultural revolution can change desperate situation in the Heaven. So he goes to the music club called Hell to learn disco dancing and singing from the little Devils: he wants to apply their techniques to praising the glory of the God…
Will Asbeel manage to learn the style of the Hell? Or will he fall in love with one of the beautiful she-devils that are a-plenty in the place? Will he be able to prove his point to the Heavens in the end? Or is there another ending to the story?
Authors of the new musical/opera project The Angels, composer Lukáš Hurník and the librettist Petr Čenský, are trying to overcome the traditional line dividing serious music from the popular music. They open their theatrical world to both operatic arias and pop songs; opera singers meet and work on the same stage with the actors normally associated with musicals. It’s not important whether you are grown up or little children, whether you like classical or popular modern music, there is something for everybody. It’s a colourful, entertaining and sophisticated family production for everybody who likes good music, one never seen before. There is a disco show, a live concert, a symphony orchestra attempting to play like the Deep Purple, and you witness a big battle between the Heaven and the Hell.
Opening: June 1, 2006 – Prague National Theatre’s Shed Project as a part of Prague Spring Festival, a co-production with the Children Opera Prague.
SELECTED REVIEWS:
During the first three quarters of Lukáš Hurník’s opera, The Angels, one feels as if entering a miraculous music world (…) …(The libretto) offers a big opportunity for humour and irony both enjoyed with a particular gusto by the composer and the actors. The scene of the angels rehearsing a song by Dvořák and looking forward to the Maestro himself who will come to listen in the evening moves the piece almost in the area of black humour. (…)
Our admiration and highest respect go this time to the Prague Children Opera creating an unforgettable performance in the roles of little angels and devils. One can only hope the five performances of the Shed Project will not be the end of it.
Josef Vlček: The Angels start with promise but end as an operetta, Mladá fronta DNES, June 12, 2006
Both the storyline and the music capitalize on the conflict between two unreconciliable music worlds, on the strife between the original values and the new ones, between the world of the old and young people, on the contrast between honest sincerity and noncommittal carelessness.
Hurník’s music imitates very well the musical routines and delights by its invention and its wit once it moves towards the symphony music or persiflage. This production cannot replace a fairy tale to an audience of little children, but it could appeal to the bigger children and teenage audiences.
Hurník knows how to imitate a musical routine and is witty, HN.IHNED.CZ 7. 6. 2006