Dates
| 09.05.2025 / 19:00 |
Information
In this unplugged set, musician Ester Grohová aka expandcollapse, cellist Kateřina Jagla, and harpist Mariana Jouzová will come together for a close to the two-day SPARK program — with dreamy soundscapes under the sky.
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Ester Grohová (she/her), aka expandcollapse, has a background in classical music and graduated from the Center for Audiovisual Studies at FAMU. Her work explores rest zones and dreamscapes, weaving collective performative rituals. She often collaborates with others and creates immersive environments using multichannel sound. As a music producer, she moves between ambient and experimental soundscapes, drawing on field recordings and layering them with vocals or delicate touches of clarinet and other instruments. The result is a series of fantastical, utopian worlds that speak intimately without words. Her current artistic focus includes themes of resistance, collective care and connection, utopia, escapism, intersectional feminism, and interspecies communication. She brings these ideas to life through performance, installation, video, and music composition.
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Kateřina Jagla (she/her) is a cellist and music mentor. She studied at JAMU in Brno and began exploring improvisation and her own creative work in 2019. She loves experimenting, working with a looper, and—when no one’s looking—using her own voice.
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Mariana Jouzová comes from a musical family rooted in classical tradition. She studied at the music high school in Žižkov, Prague, in the class of Hana Müllerová (solo harpist of the FOK Orchestra), continued at the Prague Conservatory under Lydia Härtelová (solo harpist of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra), and later studied at HAMU with Doc. Jana Boušková (principal harpist of the Czech Philharmonic) and Ana Brateljević (harpist of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra). She continues to develop her skills through masterclasses and harp congresses worldwide. In 2017, she received a special award for the best performance of the compulsory piece at the Prague Harp competition. Mariana performs with the harp quartet Prah-a-harP, made up of four harpists from her family, and in a duo with oboist Karolína Vocelová. She regularly collaborates with orchestras including FOK, CNSO, Prague Philharmonia, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Pilsen Philharmonic, Hradec Králové Philharmonic, Ostravská banda, Ostrava New Days Orchestra, Prague Music Performance Orchestra, and the Film Philharmonic. She also explores contemporary music, improvisation, and crossover genres.
