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This week’s Sunday Music Show features winners of the Czech music industry’s annual Anděl awards. Leading the pack is singer-songwriter Vladimír Mišík, who won in the categories of best male singer, best album, and rock and folk genres. The best female singer award went to Beata Hlavenková, a composer, pianist, and producer who also works as a music teacher. The Discovery of the Year award went to music project Zvíře jménem Podzim (An Animal Named Autumn), whose latest LP Září (September) also won in the Alternative and Electronic category. Then

Bára Zmeková is a singer-songwriter and pianist from Prague whose music is a blend of folk, jazz and classical, spiced with a bit of electronic. She has been hailed by critics as “one of a new generation of free musicians”.

Did the outnumbered Hussites defeat the crusaders at the Battle of Domažlice by singing? Modern-day historians are sceptical. But for František Palacký, Alois Jirásek and other Czech historians and writers of the Czech National Revival movement, the answer was clear. Their argument was Ktož jsú boží bojovníci, the choral Hussite fighting anthem (which translates from Old Czech as “Ye Who Are Warriors of God”), featured in this edition of the Best of Czech Classical Music.

In the latest edition of our series about some of the greatest works of Czech classical music we explore the most famous of Czech marches – Towards a New Life – composed by Josef Suk in the first years of the newly born Czechoslovak Republic.

Czech classical music is not only a part of national culture and history, but also of the nation’s soul. This year we have prepared a series on the renowned hits of Czech classical music. You will be familiar with many of them, as they are widely known and regularly performed in concert halls all over the world. The background to their creation and how they were recorded will all be covered by this series in the coming weeks.

As the new year arrives we look back at some of the biggest Czech hits of 2019 in Radio Prague International’s New Year’s Eve music show. The bands and artists include the award winning music legend Karel Gott, Xindl X, Czechoslovak Superstar finalists Ben Cristovao, Miro Smajda and Emma Drobná, as well as accomplished veterans Support Lesbiens. Last but not least, there is Lake Malawi who got into last year’s Eurovision Song Contest Finals in Tel-Aviv with their song Friend of a Friend.

The sons of a respected classical music composer, the Eben brothers -Kryštof, Marek and David- grew up surrounded by music and musical instruments. They received an education in classical music, but sought inspiration from folk, jazz and rock as they searched for their own style of expression. They formed their first folk-rock band in the late 1970s and their ability to combine different music styles and musical instruments created the unique "Eben style“ which captivates audiences.

Moravian-born folk singer, songwriter and music producer Karel Plíhal first picked up a guitar when he was fifteen, and got into the underground music scene with country-swing bands while studying mechanical engineering in Olomouc.

July 3rd marked 160 years since the birth of Leoš Janáček - a classical music composer with a distinctly Czech style. To mark the anniversary Radio Prague is offering listeners a selection from his greatest work -the opera Jenufa.

The roots of Czechoslovak punk stretch 40 years back, to a concert of an alternative band called Extempore. The gig took place on February 23, 1979 in a Prague pub U Zábranských, and featured several cover versions of well-known punk hits. How has the Czech punk scene developed since then? And does punk music still resonate with today’s audiences? Find out more in this edition of Sunday Music Show.