Little Music Bands (Muzičky)

The project Little Music Bands is an international music workshop of children´s and youth´s folk music bands, which takes place in the Czech Republic every year. The workshop has run since 2006, when its first year took place in Brno; in 2007, the Little Music Band workshop was held in Prague. The project was significantly transformed in 2008. It was the National Institute of Folk Culture that took over the role as an organizer of the workshop, and the event was translocated to Strážnice. The project is focused on the support to children´s and youth´s music bands whose unusual flourishing we are pleased to observe especially in recent years. Most music bands work at elementary music school, some of them are part of folk ensembles at elementary or secondary schools. The Little Music Bands try to continue their work with a workshop led by active musicians, mostly teachers at music schools and leaders of children´s music bands. During several days of the workshop, attention is paid to the practical aspect of playing in a music band, and the trainers try to explain to the children specific features of the region and repertoire of the ethnographic areas from which the music bands come. Not last, the emphasis is placed, in addition to public performances, on active common spontaneous music-making, the sense of which is to develop children´s permanent and deep relationship to the folk song. This can also be a basis for new beautiful friendships; taken together, this is the sense and mission of the Little Music Band project.