29th November: POPULAR ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS SONGS led by Jitka ŠURANSKÁ (CR)

POPULAR ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS SONGS

led by Jitka ŠURANSKÁ (CR)

Sunday 29 November 2015 (first Advent Sunday) 

Capuchin monastery at Hradčany, Prague This year you can start Advent with communal singing in the beautiful premises of the Capuchin monastery at Hradčany. This year violinist and singer Jitka Šuranská accepted our invitation to lead the workshop, saying:

“When Hlasohled approached me with the offer to lead this workshop I was hesitant at first. I’m not an ethnomusicologist, the songs that I sing I choose emotionally, sometimes I change them and sometimes I don’t even keep the regional dialect. I don’t even know where some of them come from. Yet even so, I hope I will do them justice. I try to make them lively.

Singing is an emotion. And whether you are or you are not a believer, the symbolism of hope in Advent and Christmas songs carries both joy and repose. And a bit of festive expectation. Bring your musical instruments and all your family members and friends that love to sing. We will sing in unison and in choruses and we might even form a group – if enough musicians come along. I’d like you to come away from this workshop with some notes and recordings of several songs that will give you pre-Christmas and Christmas joy at home. We look forward to seeing you.”

The workshop is open to participants of all levels; the amount of experience does not matter.

Jitka Šuranská is a violinist and singer who has been rendering and altering the folk songs of (not only) Moravia. (more here).

The workshop will take place in the Capuchin Monastery at Hradčany, Loretánské náměstí 99/6, Prague 1, on the first Advent Sunday from 10:00 to 17:30, with a 90 minute break for lunch.

Price - CZK 750; for students, pensioners, persons on parental leave and other family members CZK 620 per person. For a fee it is also possible to sleep over in the monastery.