Piece by Haštal Hapka celebrates success at International Rostrum of Composers

Building on Czech Radio’s previous successes

Czech Radio is following up on the achievements of the previous two editions of this international professional platform focused on presenting contemporary music. In 2024, František Chaloupka’s composition Allegory of the Cave II was a success, becoming the second most-broadcast composition of the festival over the following year. Last year, composer Darja Kukal Moiseeva achieved significant success with her composition Calmness II. She won the category for young composers under 30 and was also included among the recommended works intended for global radio broadcasts and concert performances. The composition A Boy with Grey Eyelashes is yet another outstanding showcase of Czech composition.

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František Chaloupka’s composition nominated by Czech Radio succeeds at the 2024 International Rostrum of Composers

“Czech Radio has long been dedicated to contemporary composition and has successfully promoted it within the international context of the European Broadcasting Union. We continuously monitor and support current compositional work, collaborating with festivals, contemporary music concert series, and leading artistic ensembles – in this case, the BERG Orchestra. Compositions by contemporary composers are regularly featured on Czech Radio Vltava in the programs Futurissimo and Contemporary Music (Soudobá hudba), and we also successfully offer them for broadcast on the Euroradio network,” declared music programmer Lucie Hradilová. 

A work with the potential to reach broadcasters worldwide

“First and foremost, I am immensely grateful to Czech Radio for nominating my composition for this year’s International Rostrum of Composers. I am no less grateful to the jury and the composers in attendance for singling out A Boy with Grey Eyelashes as ‘the most distinctive’ work. The fact that my musical world is recognizable even amidst such a wealth of great music is immensely encouraging to me. I never would have imagined that my out-of-tune children’s piano would not only be played by the BERG Orchestra at the Czech Museum of Music, but that it would also have the chance to be heard on leading radio stations around the world. It’s truly wonderful. Thank you!” said composer Haštal Hapka.

The inspiration for the award-winning composition was an old children’s piano that Haštal Hapka discovered years later in an antique shop north of Prague: “After nearly twenty years, I visited an antique shop in the plains north of Prague, in whose alleys I had last gotten lost as a child, and from piles of junk I fished out an old, half-broken children’s piano. During my first improvisation on this diatonic instrument, a theme came to mind that I’ve played ever since whenever I’ve walked past the piano," Hapka recalled.

"When I later composed a new piece for the Berg Orchestra and was thinking about sources of inspiration and musical material, I naturally returned to this theme. While working on the composition, I was repeatedly struck by the image of a child carrying the disproportionate weight of the years – a child who, in a short time, had experienced more than many people do in a lifetime. The fanfare is also a tribute to the composer Vojtěch Saudek, whom I wrote about in my thesis and who, like my little piano and many other human destinies, can be seen as a figurative boy with grey eyelashes.”

International Rostrum of Composers

This year’s International Rostrum of Composers brought together representatives of 23 national radio networks from four continents, who presented 40 works composed within the past five years. The overall winner in the General category was Stabat Mater for choir, viola da gamba and electronics, a 2024 work by Serbian composer Jug Marković. The piece was presented by RTS Radio Belgrade.