Divé husy

The Jitka Šuranská Trio sing and play about desire and its forms on the album Divé husy. The violinist and singer, Jitka Šuranská, has found great band mates: with mandolin player, Martin Krajíček and double bass player, Marian Friedl,  they recorded eleven tracks at Studio V in Zlín, with production by Slovak musician, Stano Palúch. The cornerstone of the album is in East Moravian folk songs with amazing arrangements by this trio, but there are also original compositions by Marian Friedl. These songs perfectly correspond to the legacy of the melodics and poetics of the Moravian region. And the record shows how strong the songs and legacy of Moravian folklore is nowadays.

The basis of the debut album Divé husy lies in the concord of the basic musical instruments of Jitka Šuranská Trio, which is vocals, violin, double bass and mandolin. In the recording studio, the trio made use of their instrumental skills and so you can hear other instruments in those eleven tracks as well, such as a small cimbalom, flutes, shepherd flute, bladder pipe, octave mandolin and some percussion. “We chose the songs, did the arrangements and were gradually coming up with further ideas about how to enrich the album instrumentally,” clarifies Jitka Šuranská. “We were confronted with the choice of whether to invite some guests or to try our own abilities. The second option won and especially Marian who turned out to be an exceptional player on anything.”

Jitka Šuranská, Martin Krajíček and Marian Friedl introduced themselves as a trio three years ago. At that time, they started to form their musical language, which comes from  Moravian folk music, spiced up by original instrumentation and the distinctive musical potential of the trio members. As Jitka Šuranská says: “It would have been hard to find any jazz double bass player who is also a great folk flute and cimbalom player. Same with the mandolin player who’s connected himself so naturally with the genre we play that you think that mandolin must have been part of the Moravian folk music since forever.”

Jitka Šuranská has been part of several remarkable recordings and projects in past years and has earned not only respect but also won two Anděl awards in the genre category of world music (Písňobraní (2008), Nězachoď slunečko (2013)). Each of her new recordings is awaited with excitement; and even Simon Broughton (Songlines) concluded his article on Morava saying “Jitka Šuranská is someone to watch.“ Her connecting with Martin Krajíček and Marian Friedl only underline her skills and the album Divé husy is perfect proof of it.