Beata Hlavenková (Morávková)
Pianist and composer BEATA HLAVENKOVÁ (born 1978), studied composition in classical music at the Janácek Conservatory in Ostrava. In 2004 she graduated from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst USA, with a Master’s Degree in composition, jazz composition and arranging.
In 2003, during her American studies, she was selected for The Betty Carter Jazz Ahead residential program for young composers and players in the Kennedy Centre, Washington DC. There she met Curtis Fuller, John Clayton and others.
At present, the composer has her own jazz music trio, working with leading players like drummer Martin Novák and bassist Rastislav Uhrík, as well as drummers Pavel Bady Zboril, Jirí Slavícek, Roman Vícha and bass players Tomáš Liška and Martin Lehký. In October 2005, she and the trio (R. Uhrik and R. Vicha) won the Jazz Junior prize 2005 for “Band of the Year, composition and arrangement.”
In October 2008 a large concert of jazz bands took place in the Rudolfinum concert hall, where she expanded her trio to include the Prague Chamber Philharmonic and Lenka Dusilová.
She has appeared in the “S’aight” project where she collaborated as composer with the guitarist and composer Patrik Hlavenka and, in 2004, released an album of the same title with Jaromír Honzák, Daniel Šoltis and Rostislav Fraš. It was one of the first albums to belong to the new wave of Czech original composition jazz records.
She was also a founding member of the Jaromír Honzák trio “Face of the bass“, together with Roman Vícha, with whom she played during 2006 and 2007. In the spring of 2010, she participated in the recording of their album, which will be released in 2011 by Animal Music.
In the summer of 2005, she was a member of the winning ensemble “S’aight and Vertigo Connection” at the prestigious international music festival in Montreux, Switzerland. The ensemble continued to give occasional concerts under the name “Open Sextet”. In December 2005, at their Czech premiere, as guests, they performed with the world’s leading jazz musicians including trumpeter Ingrid Jensen and saxophonist Rich Perry. In 2008, she again played with Rich Perry at the Jazz Fest in Brno and for an international radio transmission by EBU, and in the autumn of 2009 Rich toured with The Beata‘s Trio.
In 2006 she won an anonymous composer competition organized by Czech Radio, with her composition “Jazvecík vo hmle za stlpom” (sausage dog in the fog behind a pillar) or “Monday Meeting”. Her musical activities range beyond jazz and classical music.
The focus of her activities in the field of pop music since 2005 has been collaboration with the enfant terrible of the local Czech scene, Lenka Dusilová, which resulted in a unique project called Eternal Seekers, and together with the band The Clarinet Factory, Beata was co-composer as well as arranger.
Other major artists which she has worked, or is working with, include Iva Bittová, for whom she is currently arranging songs for symphony orchestra. This cooperation began in 2009.
She has worked on two albums with country & western singer Vera Martinová, with whom she toured in 2006.
Then there is her cooperation with personalities and groups such as Yvonne Sanchez, The Vertigo Quintet, Toxique, Ondrej Ruml, Ondrej Konrád, Josef Štepánek, Katka Šarközi, Triny, Benedikta, David Doružka, Leona Prokopcová and more.
The keynote album Joy for Joel (2009 Animal Music), was recorded in the U.S.A, where she again met Rich Perry and Ingrid Jensen, as well as the pedal steel guitarist Dave Easley and others.
In the same year she went on tour with Ingrid Jensen, Jon Wikan and the leading Polish bassist Michal Baranski. In addition to very positive reviews, she received a nomination for the music award Andel (Angel).
She has also worked as a music teacher at The Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory and Higher Specialised School, and currently at The New York University in Prague and has participated on the curriculum for the first Czech university study of jazz music in the Czech Republic, begun at the Jana?ek Academy of Performing Arts in Brno, in 2010.?
On the Czech jazz scene, she is one of the most sought-after pianists. Besides the piano, which she prefers to play and collaborates with the Petrof makers – she often plays a Fender Rhodes piano.
With her husband Patrik Hlavenka alias Karpentski, she has two sons, Mathias Joel (born 2007) and Theodor Elie (born 2010).
“The original, stylish jazz pianist Beata Hlavenková‘s album belongs to the family of happy, timeless recordings, whose quality with passing days, weeks and months does not weaken. On the contrary.”
Saša Neuman, Report
“I played this album several times over to see if my enthusiasm somewhat abated after the first listen, but it still sounds like a really extraordinary phenomenon on our contemporary scene,”
Lubomír Dorůžka