Press

100 Years

(Animal Music, 2020)

“The 100 Years album is a recording of an excellent piece of music and a political commentary at the same time. It shows how current a jazz big band can be.”

Tomáš S. Polívka, Harmonie (01/2021), Concept Art Orchestra: Nesoudit, ale trochu vybízet

Vánoce dospělých

(Animal Music, 2018)

“First of all, I am pleased that the CAO and the group of composers Prague Six have managed a fundamental compromise. To make the record accessible to a wider audience, which here does not sound ingratiating, but rather the author’s humility, awareness of the purpose, respect for the audience. And at the same time, to write an arrangement that is not average but is amusing even for demanding listeners.”

Tomáš S. Polívka, Magazín UNI (01/2019)

„The rich diversity of this album is open to all listeners who are tired of the pathos of pop singers, as well as the omnipresent carols in the public space. You won’t get enough of these carols and Christmas inspiration here. You can pretty well believe me.“

Milan Bátor, Český rozhlas, Album dne, 6. 12/2018

Life and Happiness of Julian Tuwim

(Animal Music, 2017)

“It is important to say that her music is not only a guide to the poet’s messages through the singer’s pleasant, cultivated voice, but is so distinctive that it can also stand as an independent instrumental suite; apparently this is due to her experience writing and arranging for the Concept Art Orchestra. There is no doubt that the “Tuwim” project with its musical charge will rank among the few pearls of our contemporary jazz.”

Vladimír Kouřil, Hudební rozhledy (12/2017), Podzimní stopování Štěpánky Balcarové

“It may be an album of songs, but in reality the music plays much more than an accompanying role. Štěpánka Balcarová actually managed to set a poem to music for all the songs (each in a different way), but at the same time to write a full-fledged jazz composition that could work even when the human voice is replaced by another melodic instrument.”

Milan Tesař, Harmonie, Recenze (11/2017)

Vernal

(Amplión, 2017)

The second name of Inner Spaces is lyricism. This is what Štěpánka Balcarová brings to the album, not only with her playing on the trumpet and (due to the nature of its sound) especially on the flugelhorn, but also with her sense of improvisation and composer’s contribution.”

Ondřej Bezr, Lidové noviny, 28. března 2017, Inner Spaces vykouzlili v obvyklé sestavě osobitý výraz

“The music in the seven tracks on the new Inner Spaces album is extremely colorful, contemplative, immersive, wisely calm, pleasantly flowing, but the listener feels excitement inside; I don’t hesitate to call such music excellent cool-jazz of the 21st century!”

Jan Hocek, Jazz port, 28.2. 2017, Inner Spaces ohlašují jaro

„The music is typical modern Eastern European Jazz, with excellent compositions full of melancholy and lyricism and a rather foggy atmosphere of contemplation and anticipation,…“

Adam Baruch, The soundtrack of my life (blog), 8.11 2020

Concept Art Orhestra — The Prague Six

(Animal Music, 2015)

“The revelation of the current line-up of the CAO and its compositional background seems to me to be a developmental shift in the history of Czech orchestral jazz.”

Vladimír Kouřil, Hudební rozhledy, 7/2015

Inner Spaces

(2010)

„Many debut albums prove to be rather naïve in retrospect, but I am happy to say that this one lost absolutely nothing of its original magic and is completely immune to time.“

Adam Baruch, The soundtrack of my life (blog), 8.11 2020