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Czechomor also provides an excellent opportunity for fans to trace back Celtic echoes that lie deeply rooted in the cultures of Bohemia and Moravia but which are related to the music of Brittany and Ireland in particular. The band’s unique mélange of traditional folk mixed with Ottoman dissonance, Gypsy czardas, Napoleonic mustering dances and Celtic rhythms have succeeded in winning over young and old alike.

Karel Holas, graduate on the classical violin at the Brno Musical Conservatory, acts as band leader. With Franta Cernz they spend much of their time resuscitating long-forgotten poems and folk ballads.

Established in 1988 as the Czech Moravian Music Society the band soon developed into far more than a reservoir of traditional music.

As ex-president Václav Havel's favourite ensemble, Czechomor entertained celebrity audiences at charity concerts. They brought Czech folk music to the Royal Albert Hall in London. In 1999 Czechomor performed at the Rudolstadt Festival in Germany and at the EBU Folk Festival in Dranouter in Belgium. That same year the band was invited to front Czech Republic’s most popular rock band: Lucie. While playing for rock audience, Czechomor proved themselves as the ultimate live band.

Their music explodes with raw energy, but also maintains integrity and honesty - virtues very rare in today's showbiz. During the tour, thousands of new fans converted to Czechomor's brand of music.Reaching a mainstream audience was a challenge. After "updating" traditional songs, Czechomor embarked on an ambitious project. The musicians met up with Jaz Coleman from the British punk band Killing Joke, who had turned to classical music. Coleman helped them produce their next album, Transformations, recorded with the Czech Philharmonic Collegium. The album was a tremendous success with over 80 000 copies sold. Transformations went on to win three Czech Music Academy Awards for Best Album, Best Group, Best Song.

In 2002 Czechomor starred in a fiction-documentary called The Year of the Devil which won the Crystal Globe at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and went on to win a total of 7 Czech Lion awards (the Czech equivalent of the Oscar Academy Awards) including Best Soundtrack.

The band spent much of 2003 touring with the Czech Philharmonic Collegium. In April their Prague concert was recorded for TV and the resulting DVD Transformations Tour became a bestseller.

With 4 platinum releases to their credit, Czechomor is the most popular band in the Czech Republic and have performed all over the Czech and Slovak republic, in Germany, Belgium, England, Ireland, USA, France, Russia, Luxembourg, Poland, Rumania, Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Spain.

In May 2005 Czechomor released What happened next which spent 6 weeks at No. 1 on the Czech hitparade and three months later was still No. 3. It sold 20 000 copies within the first week of its release. What happened next features WOMAD artists Iarla O Lionaird (Ireland) and Joji Hirota (Japan) as well as the renowned Czech female vocalist Lenka Dusilova, Dan Valis (uilleann pipes), Jan Mikusek (cimbalom) and Mirek Zidlicky (flute). The album was reviewed by the influential British music magazines Songlines and fRoots.

“The Czech group Czechomor was one of the first Czechoslovakian acts I listened to. They were part of the first flush of my expanding awareness of contemporary Czechoslovakian music, alongside Jablkon and the Wihan Quartet. … Czechomor's 2005 “What Happened Next: “ album is a contemporary folk masterpiece. It is as revelatory-revolutionary in its way as, to put it in UK terms, a roll-up of Fairport Convention's sod-crunching Liege And Lief, the Home Service's Alright Jack and Brass Monkey's debut. (Add a downright Oysterous boisterousness on Tece vodenka [Water Flows].) With tap roots deep in the Czech-Moravian tilth, as befits a band that drew so heavily on the Czech culture-defining collections of the 19th-century folklorist Frantisek Susil… The Czechomor of What Happened Next: is an acousto-electric band - it still appears occasionally as a totally acoustic variant - pushed into new places by guest musicians and the co-production of Ben Mandelson and Rob Keyloch. Over the years, while remaining true to Susil's spirit, Czechomor has provided some radical changes of musical character to the formula…
For pace, melodicism, rhythmicality and depth of interest, my most-played album of 2005.”
Ken Hunt, fRoots

The band is:
Karel Holas - violin, singer
Frantisek Cerny - quitar, singer
Radek Poboril - accordeon
Michal Pavlik - cello
Roman Lomtadze - drums, percussion

Website: www.cechomor.cz