Works for String Quartet : Suk Chamber Orchestra String Quartet

JOSEF VEJVODA STRING QUARTETS

STRING QUARTET OF THE SUK CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
PLAYS compositions by JOSEF VEJVODA

HOMMAGE a KAREL KRAUTGARTNER
STRING QUARTET No. 1
TRE VOLTE ALLEGRAMENTE
DANCING SKETCHES
CELEBRATION OF LIFE
Divertimento for Meda

Josef Vejvoda (*1945), the composer, conductor, bandmaster and percussionist, is the youngest son of the composer and bandmaster Jaromír Vejvoda, composer of the world-famous polka Škoda lásky (Beer Barrel Polka). He completed his studies at the Prague Conservatoire in 1970, composing a work titled MOTUS. In 1967 he took won fi rst prize for percussion playing at a nationwide competition of jazz musicians. He has been the top choice in jazz audience surveys many times. He has played with the leading jazz musicians and ensembles in this country, and he has accompanied such jazz stars as Benny Bailey, Ted Curson, Joe Newman, Lou Blackburn, Scott Robinson, Tony Scott, and Toots Thielemans. At age 15 he played in the Czechoslovak Radio Big Band, where he enjoyed success both as a percussionist and as a composer. He has written many pieces for big band, and most of them were recorded on the albums WALKIN’ AND TALKIN’ and JOSEF VEJVODA 70.

With his jazz trio, which he founded in 1998, he recorded seven albums, the last of which is titled Josef Vejvoda Trio Live. Since its founding, the trio has been devoting itself to projects with chamber ensembles and symphony orchestras. Josef Vejvoda’s compositions have been played by renowned musicians, such as the orchestras in Pardubice, Hradec Králové, Brno, and Teplice, the Janáček Philharmonic in Ostrava, the Suk Chamber Orchestra, the Janáček Philharmonic Brass Ensemble, the Band of the Castle Guards and the Police of the Czech Republic, the Czech Army Central Band, the violinists Pavel Šporcl and Josef Suk, the oboist Vilém Veverka, the violist Jitka Hosprová, the harpist Kateřina Englichová, and the clarinettist Milan Řeřicha. He also devotes himself to sacred music. His choral works have been sung by the Moravian Teachers’ Choir, the Prague Chamber Choir, and other groups. On this album, you will also find a song cycle with the title VERSI SANTI.

His collaborations with the Suk Chamber Orchestra began in 2007. Josef Vejvoda describes them as follows: “First of all, I met the maestro Josef Suk, grandson of the composer Josef Suk and great-grandson of Antonín Dvořák. I showed him a few of my compositions for chamber orchestra and jazz trio. He liked the music, so he arranged to make a recording with the Suk Chamber Orchestra. That resulted in an album titled TŘI MALÉ LASKY (Three Little Loves) after one of my pieces. I was very pleased that on the album, Josef Suk also recorded the slow movement from my NOVELTY CONCERTO. Our cooperation then continued for a few concerts, the biggest of which was for my 70th birthday at the Martinů Hall on 5 October 2015.” In 2020 Josef Vejvoda celebrated his 75th birthday. For that jubilee, two albums were released as well as a songbook with more than 35 songs.

On 5 October 2020 a jubilee concert took place in Prague at the Martinů Hall to celebrate the launch of Josef’s new album with the title JOSEF VEJVODA MELODRAMY. At the event, the oboist Vilém Veverka had this to say: “Josef’s music has several parameters, several attributes. It is music of high quality, music that does not pretend to be something it isn’t, and for that I think its value is all the greater in the context of contemporary music, and I think those are attributes that make the music attractive to listeners, but not by being cheap or pandering. These days, that’s no small matter in itself, and it’s something that performers really enjoy. If that’s what Josef Vejvoda is all about, then I’d say we could use more people like him”.

Josef Vejvoda has been invited to guest conduct in a number of European countries, where he leads performances of his father’s most famous compositions as well as his own, such as the polka JAK ZAMLADA (Like in Younger Days), which he dedicated to his father for the 100th anniversary of his birth. It was given its premiere at the Prague Spring Festival in 2002. Conducting the Band of the Castle Guards was Libor Pešek. That same year (2002), Josef was invited to New York, where he conducted the Band of the Castle Guards and the Police of the Czech Republic at sold-out Carnegie Hall. He received a standing ovation, giving his father probably the greatest gift for the 100th anniversary of his birth. George H. W. Bush has the song ŠKODA LÁSKY (Beer Barrel Polka) in his presidential library; see the personal letter from the American president to Josef Vejvoda in the booklet.

Josef Vejvoda creates compositions in both chamber and solo form, and lets the beauty of stringed instruments resound in them both in terms of historical retrospection and contemporary feeling. Perhaps out of respect for the members of Smetana’s former quartet, jazzman Stéphane Grappelli, or Josef Suk, Jitka Hosprová, Pavel Šporcl, who brilliantly realized his violin and viola compositions. And there will certainly be other, younger instrumentalists who will spread his work for stringed instruments all over the world.