Organists generally have an affinity for improvisation, and in some this particular tendency leads them to discovering an inner urge to actually get involved in composing their own music. This auteur project mounted by Katty, a distinctive musician, organist and vocalist, entitled Vox Organi (Voice of the Organ) is centered around early liturgical texts and prayers. It was brought into life in the composer´s “home” church, Saint Salvator´s in the Old Town of Prague. “It was there I kept experimenting with the sound of the organ and with the instrument´s potential, recording various sound layers which I then integrated into my performing practice,” says Katta. She named her instrumental pieces, encompassing a broad palette of sounds and organ voices, Meditations. For Katta, the “king of instruments”, as the organ has been dubbed, has been the source of a mighty creative impulse, one whose inspirational relevance adds up in equal measure to that of a particular material and spiritual environment. Hence also this programme´s adjustment to a specific instrument and atmosphere. Katta´s Vox Organi tour covers a map dotted with Gothic and Baroque churches, covering alternately dilapidated, half-ruined temples and modern prayer halls and places of worship – all of them places which she feels to be magical. One of such venues is the Church of St Barbara in Kutná Hora, with its monumental organ set with close to four thousand pipes. Incidentally, Kutná Hora prides in a local tradition of organ building – and playing – dating several centuries back. Perhaps on your way to this concert you may have noticed passing by a historical house with a sign identifying it as “The Organ Builder´s”, where you may just as well also pause on your way back.

                                                                                                  sleeve-note: Dita Hradecká / translation: Ivan Vomáčka