* En anglais uniquement
Established in 2000, the traditional Moravian folk group
Muziga is the main vehicle for Jirí and Helena Vedral's love of Eastern European folk music. If the group took its final name just two years prior to the release of its official debut,
O Lásce ("about love"), it actually exists since 1992, when the Vedrals began to perform together professionally. Since the beginning guitarist and violinist have shared a love for Czech folklore and particularly the music of Wallachia, a region of Moravia where
Helena Vedralová is born; "muziga" is a Wallachian word for a group of musicians. The duo recorded the cassette Jaborové Huslicky in 1995. It already featured bassist Petr Korínek, an in-demand session jazzman who would collaborate with the couple for five years. They recorded the CD Hej, Lesem (or "Hello From the Forest") in 1998 and performed throughout the Czech Republic and Poland.
In 2000, Jan Dvorák stepped in to replace Korínek. Bassist with the Pardubice Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra, he brought along his colleague Cécile Boiffin, a French percussionist recently emigrated to the Czech Republic. Boiffin's proficiency in an array of ethnic and mallet percussion instruments provided the music with the ornaments it needed to go to the next level. That's when the decision was made to give this quartet a name of its own,
Muziga.
O Lásce came out in mid-2002, by which time the group had already toured Poland, Portugal, England, and the United States. Jirí Vedral and
Helena Vedralová also continue to perform together in other projects. They appear on Feng-Jün Song's album Mountain Caravan. ~ François Couture