Art against totalitarianism.

Jiří Pavlica & Hradistan

Severacek, children's choir

Silvie Langrová, choir director

"Music has an artistic function, but it can also have the ability to heal. This is more and more necessary in today's value-disturbed world. The songs about love and hope that we are preparing are a counterweight to evil and give meaning to our entire program."

Jiří Pavlica

The musical statement of this year's artistic guarantor Jiří Pavlica on the difficult topic of oppression and persecution is inspired by the confessions of poets who survived concentration camps, fascism and totalitarianism. The program, entitled Memento, refers to the oratorio of the same name by Jiří Pavlica, which is currently being completed. Jiří Pavlica, together with his ensemble Hradistan and the Severáček children's choir, has tailored the project for the Lípa Musica festival and the All Saints Basilica in Česká Lípa. The program will therefore also include the unique local organ.

In addition to anonymous poets who, even in moments of greatest fear, did not lose hope and faith in humanity and wrote poems preserved in prison files, the poems of Jan Skácel, persecuted and banned by the totalitarian regime, and the imprisoned Jan Zahradníček will also be heard. The motif of hope is an important element of the heavy theme, and it is the most important variable here. This hope is represented by the youth and energy of the Severáček Choir.