Janáček’s Brno

“Every year, the Czech Centre in New York cooperates with dozens of Czech as well as American institutions, and our cooperation with TIC Brno on the Katya Kabanova project in New York is definitely among the best and most pleasant of them. And the results speak for themselves! Taken by surprise by the pandemic, the project was transferred online, becoming the biggest project of the Czech Center in New York mainly thanks to online products from Brno. And our largest project – Year of Leoš Janáček in New York – is what inspired the Year of Bohuslav Martinů in 2021.”

Miroslav Konvalina
manager of the New York Czech Center

“The cooperation between the Moravian Museum and TIC Brno on the project promoting Leoš Janáček and his relation to Brno has been going on for several years now and quite actively. The accomplishments say enough on their own: a website, a Janáček-themed guide to Brno, several exhibitions, including a presentation in the Czech Center in New York, a cookbook of recipes by Janáček’s cook, various educational materials and shows, promotional materials, and much more. Our colleagues from TIC Brno keep coming up with creative ideas and inventive solutions. Most of these efforts are then easily directed internationally. Ror example, the multilingual Janáček website has become a respected source of information not only for Janáček enthusiasts but also for experts all over the world. It’s thanks to this project that we finally succeeded in bringing Leoš Janáček closer to the public as one of our most significant composers—through a strong connection to the Brno he knew.”

Barbora Javorová
Secretary for External Affairs at the Moravian Museum

“I started to cooperate with TIC Brno in 2017 when the first assignment arrived as part of the Brno Christmas project; I was to design three Christmas cups and, at the same time, it was my first Janáček-related job.

The cups were a great success and sold out quickly—and I’ve been working Janáček-related jobs ever since. Cooperating with TIC and, mainly, with Šárka Zahrádková, has been great. The first job was to design a memory game with Janáček motifs, but her incredible determinationled to us creating a whole lot more. The collection has grown bigger and bigger, now including memory game, chocolate, cups, T-shirts for kids, a tram with motifs from Janáček’s operas printed all over it, three animated films on the life of Janáček, an online memory game, wrapping papers, a concertina book, and last year we published a cookbook of recipes by Janáček’s cook.

When an animator I’ve been working with on the Sing with Us show arrived in Brno after long years, he just wandered into the Information Centre under the Crocodile and immediately sent me a message saying it looked like I had my own shop in Brno!

That said, I’m incredibly grateful for this cooperation, as it’s a great honour and makes me feel at home here in Brno.”

Vendula Chalánková
designer and conceptual artist

“The working relationship between the National Theatre Brno and TIC has developed immensely in recent years. There are great efforts to create strong synergic relations among TIC and key personalities and institutions from local culture. It used to be that even the largest local cultural institutions had to beg for even the most basic support; now, however, we have a forthcoming, open, and friendly cooperation going on, with strong and inventive impulses coming from TIC. I appreciate their cooperation in promoting Leoš Janáček as a key element of the city’s identity; in the past, there used to be a lot of talk but far less work done. The monthly KAM magazine has turned into a generous and modern city information piece which compares well with similar materials published by other European cities. I also appreciate the team’s courage to promote the city and local events through modern and often controversial solutions that ultimately turned out to be extraordinarily efficient.”

Martin Glaser
director of the National Theatre Brno