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Iva Bittova
Iva Bittová’s countryman Milan Kundera wrote how Europe’s “small nations” form another Europe. The violinist-vocalist may be ‘small nation’ Czech but her musical worldview and visionary creativity acknowledge no borders. Her powers of spontaneous creativity are more bountiful than it is fair to confer on one person. Witness and marvel. [50 words] by Ken Hunt
Iva Bittová was born in 1958 in Bruntál in northern Moravia in what was then Czechoslovakia – and nowadays the Czech Republic. Both of her parents were musicians. Her mother Ludmila was a pre-school teacher who spent most of her life with her family; her father Koloman Bitto – Bittová is the surname’s female form – was a musician strongly influenced by the land of his birth – southern Slovakia. His main instruments were string bass, cimbalom, guitar, and trumpet. This exceptional ability to play almost any instrument he laid his hands on, whether performing in classical or folk music styles, proved a major influence on his three daughters as they grew up. Both of Iva’s sisters – her older sister Ida and her younger sister Regina – are professional drama and music performers.
Iva attended drama pre-school, specializing in violin and ballet. In due course she gained admittance to the Music Conservatory in Brno, often called the Czech Republic’s second city. She graduated in drama and music. During her studies, Iva took part-time engagements as an actress and musician in Brno’s Divadlo Husa na provázku (Goose On A String Theater). She cites these engagements as some of the most formative and influential of her life.
Around this time she also featured as an actress in radio, TV and movie productions. Later on, while working full time in theater, she re-kindled her interest in playing violin, an instrument she had set aside in her younger years. After her father’s early death, she decided to follow in his professional footsteps as an instrumentalist and by composing her own music.
In 1982, Iva started studying with Professor Rudolf Šťastný, the primarius (first violin) of the Moravian String Quartet. In the intervening years the violin has become her life’s passion and the most inspiring musical instrument in her professional life. Iva firmly believes that, as playing the violin places extreme demands on musicians, the composer’s work depends utterly on commitment and diligence.
After living in the countryside near Brno for 17 years, Iva decided to relocate her personal and professional life to the United States.
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Iva Bittova: Knowing, Feeling...
by Ian Patterson
[Note: This article was first published in Music & Literature, a North American magazine dedicated to promoting artists worthy of wider attention] Iva Bittová is a rare talent. She has developed a personal idiom and vocabulary that is almost entirely her own. Her sound, her very personal language, forged from the union of violin and voice, cannot be categorized yet is immediately recognizable. Bittová is, quite simply, inimitable. Though she is not the first artist ...
read moreIva Bittova: Iva Bittova
by Ian Patterson
The catch-all term avant-garde is often used to describe singer/violinist Iva Bittová's music, but in truth her musical language--kaleidoscopic in color and unique in presentation--is essentially unclassifiable. A well known actress, Bittová expanded her horizons to music in the early eighties, since when she's bounced from Bartok to experimental rock, and from folk-influenced jazz to her collaboration with innovative New York ensemble Bang on a Can. Bittová's eclecticism is evident on her debut as leader for ECM, an intimate solo ...
read moreIva Bittova: Iva Bittova
by John Kelman
In its four-plus decade career, ECM Records has done more to blur, stretch and dissolve musical boundaries than any other label on the planet. With the world becoming a smaller place it's also become a fertile breeding ground for cross-cultural, cross-genre cross-pollination, with ECM on the vanguard of the inevitable consequences, having released countless examples of a fearless rejection of anything but the idea that music is simply music. Yes, there are delineations, but only for the purposes of trying ...
read moreJazz this week: Regina Carter, Iva Bittová & Hamid Drake, and more
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St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman
Wondering what's happening this week in live jazz and creative music in St. Louis? Let's go to the highlights... Wednesday, January 18 Arguably the premier jazz violinist working today, Regina Carter (pictured, top left) opens a four-night engagement continuing through Saturday at Jazz at the Bistro. Like many a conservatory trained musician, Carter certainly has fluid technique, but what really sets her apart from other equally proficient players are her expressive abilities as an improvisor, her feeling for blues and ...
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Bassist George Mraz releases "Moravian Gems" with Emil Viklicky, Iva Bittova and Laco Tropp
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All About Jazz