Do you think great live music is always expensive? Now you can enjoy 10 concerts of world, folklore and ethnic music for only CZK 300. Concerts of Etno Jaro festival will take place in Stará Pekárna (“Old Bakery”) club – one every Thursday evening until April.

Schedule of Etno Jaro 2012

Concerts start at 8 p.m.

• Thu 2/2 – Trio de Janeiro (etnojazz)
• Thu 2/16 – Ladě (“rough chanson”)
• Thu 2/23 – Živé kvety (Slovak punk-folk band)
• Thu 3/1 – Los Rumberos Trio (Cuba/CZ, latin & afro-cuban)
• Thu 3/8 – Ahmed má hlad (south./east. European music)
• Thu 3/15 – Neočekávaný dýchánek
• Thu 3/22 – Tubabu (west-african music) + support: OIT
• Thu 3/29 – Di Grine Kuzine (Berlin-based klezmer band)
• Thu 4/4 – Bran (Czech band playing music of Brittany)
• Thu 4/12 – KlezMehrin (klezmer) – on the top picture

Before the first concert on 2/2, a festival pass can be bought at Stará Pekárna (8 Štefánikova st.) for only CZK 300 (€12).

Single tickets cost from CZK 100 to CZK 150 and the pass can be bought later for CZK 450.

One of the most distinct trip-hop artists, Manchester-based duo Lamb will perform a concert at Fléda club (24 Štefánikova st.) on Sunday, February 5.

Lamb are famous for blending trip hop with jazz and elements of drum and bass. Wikipedia

Lamb consists of Andy Barlow and Lou Rhodes. The duo was active from 1996 to 2004; they reunited for the new album 5 and a tour in 2009.

On Sunday, Lamb will be supported by The Ramona Flowers and Jay Leighton. The concert starts at 8 p.m. Tickets cost CZK 550(pre-sale)/599.

With its 85 meters, Spielberk Tower (on the top picture) became the new tallest building of Brno. But not for long – there are more interesting “skyscrapers” rising up in the so called “South centre”.

The construction of nearby AZ Tower at Heršpická st. is supposed to be finished in early 2013. 111 meters tall, it will become the highest building in the Czech republic.

AZ Tower (source: designmag.cz)

In 2015, two 90 meters high towers of H-Park, located next to Heršpická st. too, will change the cityscape for good.

H-Park (source: skyscrapercity.com)

The location around Heršpická st. is known as the “South centre”. Although being located within 15 minutes walk of the main station, this part of Brno had been desolated for decades. The sad situation has changed with the construction of M-Palác, Spielberk Office Centre and other buildings in the late 1990s and 2000s.

However, the place still has not become a living part of the town – there are no apartments, only few restaurants and the quarter dies every day at 5 p.m. when most people leave their offices. The architectonic quality of most of the new projects is disputable. Many local people are also afraid that the high rise buildings may destroy the cityscape, still being shaped by Špilberk castle and Petrov cathedral.

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Older record-holding buildings in Brno:

1. Faculty of mechanical engineering, Technická st. – 74 m, finished in 1985
2. Center for Adult Medicine in Bohunice, Jihlavská st. – 69 m, finished in 1989
3. Office buildings at Šumavská st. – 66 m, finished in the 1970s
4. M-Palác, Heršpická st. – 60 m, finished in 1997

The tower of St. Jacob’s church at Jakubská st. in the historical centre is 92 m tall.

(source: Wikipedia)

Zemanova kavárna at 4 Josefská st. (not to be confused with Zemanova kavárna at Koliště park) was reopened after a refurbishment. Beside coffee and candies, it offers screenings of the most popular Czech films – with English subtitles.

The series called “Kinokavárna” (cine-café) will be launched at Wednesday, January 25, by a bizarre 1980s proto steam punk adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians. Directed by the creator of many popular comedies, Oldřich Lipský, the movie has gained a cult following.

The screening starts at 8 p.m. You can follow more events via the Facebook page of BIOGRAF film club. In the forthcoming months, A Nice Plate of Spinach, Adele Hasn’t Had Her Dinner Yet and Riders in the Sky will be shown.

Updated: I totally forgot about the price of tickets. They cost only CZK 50 (€2) each, a piece of candy is included.

Mayor was given a statue for his birthday, rich ball attendees were fed bread and salt… A new form of civic disobedience has been blooming in Brno: tongue-in-cheek confessions of love and gratitude.

On 11/11/11, the very first protest of this kind took place at Moravské náměstí sq. and in the court of New Town Hall. The town’s mayor, Roman Onderka, was given an above-lifesize statue of himself for his birthday. The piece of art portrayed him flying on a piece of magical “obsidian” rock. Some 100+ people took part in this event. Its motto “May God protect you until the age of 111″ was a pun at Onderka’s expense, as he is obssesed with numerology.

Young people feeding the starving ball attendees.

The first protests were iniciated by the platform ŽítBrno.cz, which I am personally involved in (learn more in this article). However, the movement has become quite independent, not being tied to any specific person or political opinion. It reflects the general disagreement of ordinary people with the way the town is managed by politicians. Read more about recent issues.

Also, check out more pictures of the statue for Mr. Onderka and a video footage of the ball hack.

Five Brno restaurants praised by the editors of Grand Restaurant Guide are joining Grand Restaurant Festival. This means that you can buy vouchers for special discounted tasting menus offered from January 15 to February 15.

Koishi fish & sushi, La Bouchée, Noem Arch, U Kastelána (CZ only) and Valoria (CZ only) sell the vouchers for the same prices:

Of course, it is still not “cheap”, but it is a great opportunity to try out dining in these fancy restaurants. Just keep in mind that you have to buy a voucher in advance.

Images of the mind (source: moravska-galerie.cz)

Exhibition Images of the Mind presents how both artists and scientists have been envisioning the human mind for centuries. It is on view at the Moravian Gallery until 3/18 2012.

The exhibition will display a wide scope of exhibits: from medieval medical tractates and illuminated manuscripts via medical illustration from the 19th century to current high-tech biomedicine images and visualizations. They will be accompanied by a broad spectrum of artistic expressions of various origins that depict the working of the mind – such as Renaissance portraits representing the “movement of the mind” or examples of Chinese landscape paintings created as clear metaphors of the human mind, works of art of classic modernism and contemporary art, including installations, new media and videoart. (source: Moravská Galerie)

If you are interested, check out the schedule of English/German language guided tours.

For three years, Brno Now has been the only source of news from Brno in English. The time has come to rethink the website – so it can be useful for another three years. You can help me with that right now. It will only take two minutes.

Thank you for being so helpful! I am looking forward to be in touch with you in 2012.

Christmas market at Náměstí svobody sq. (picture from last year)

The traditional Christmas markets at Náměstí svobody sq. and Zelný trh sq. launched last week. You can wander through them to get some presents, sausages, hot wine, or just to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere.

Right now I can recommend only the Zastávka café stand at Zelný trh sq., offering excellent Kokino homemade cookies. I will continue trying out the venues and will share my insights at the Facebook page of Brno Now.

Sadly, Tourist Information Centre does not offer any information about the programme in English or German. As usual, you can get only a Czech version. What a fail.

Welcome to Brno!

The ruin of “Chepos” building will finally stop scaring the guts out of people arriving to Brno main station. Its owner wants to repair it before the end of 2012.

For nine years it has served as a decaying shelter for bums. Partially covered by a huge advertisement, it was the first thing to be seen after walking out of the main train station or bus station “U Grandu”.

Now this is probably going to change, as the new owner wants to transform the former casino into an office building. The always crowded underground passage beneath it is supposed to remain open for public, although the – mostly Vietnamese – stand-owners have to close their businesses.

Source: href=”http://brnensky.denik.cz/zlociny-a-soudy/posledni-spor-o-kasino-konci20111120.html”>Brněnský deník Rovnost

Ernst and Herbert looking into the garden in the mid 1930s.

German artist Dirk Brömmel mashes up stills from Tugendhats’ family album with the look of their famous villa in the early 21st century. You can see the disturbing ghost-like results at Brno House of Arts until January 29, 2012.

Tugendhats owned and used their “forever modern” house only for few years in the 1930s, as they decided to leave the country before WW2. The villa was confiscated and the state has never returned it back. Therefore observing little kids playing in a house now used as a museum of modern architecture seems “inappropriate” in some way.

The exhibiton is located in Brno House of Arts at 2 Malinovského náměstí sq., tickets cost CZK 80 each.

Greta Tugendhat with kids in front of the famous onyx wall.

Right now, Tugendhat villa is closed for maintanance. It will reopen in early 2012.

Janáček's Theatre (source: Wikimedia Commons)

From 2012 on, the quality of life in Brno may be going down.

The municipal budget of Brno got hit hard not only by the ongoing finance/debt crisis but also by a new rule, enforced by finance minister Miroslav Kalousek. The new system of wealth redistribution gives more public money to the so far underfinanced small Czech towns, while it cuts the donations to the so far overfinanced large cities. This means that the municipal budgets of Brno will be some 900,000,000 CZK (€35M) tighter in the future years.

While the town council does not even seem to try to save some money on huge infrastructure projects (like the new railway station), it has given a clear order to the directors of town-owned companies focused on culture and leisure time: find a way in which you can save 20 % of your budgets every year.

So, from the state of not really thinking much about money (no offense), many institutions instantly switched into a state of a saving shitstorm. And this could have bad consequences to the quality of life in Brno:

• Janáček’s Opera was supposed to close for seven months, which would actually mean the very end of this famous institution. After a huge protests of artists, fans of opera and some public personas (including former president Václav Havel), and also after a negative foreign press coverage, the town coucil is looking for a way how to save the opera. It is likely it will be joined with some other institution.
• Zoological garden is going to fire 20 percent of its employees
• Cinema Scala is going to close down. The town-owned space will be rented to another institution, probably to the owners of Fléda club.
• The price of public transport tickets and coupons will rise. Not only because the budget cuts, but also due to the VAT increase (14 percent, the highest level in the central Europe).

The cuts should not affect most of alternative clubs, festivals and events, as the council has not been cuddling them with donations. Surprisingly, this is becoming their advantage.