Her initial training in classical music performance has not stopped her from enjoying complete artistic freedom in her own creative output, in which she transcends music genres with a fascination for the opportunities that lie beyond. Her recital in the Influencers of Resonance series will give the audience a glimpse of both exquisite worlds – classical and personal.

NIKOL BÓKOVÁ has pursued the education and career of a classical musician whose repertoire stretches from the Baroque era to contemporary works. She regularly collaborates with leading Czech orchestras – she made her solo debut with the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava at the age of nine. In 2018 she concluded her studies at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts in Brno, which had incorporated a year-long scholarship at the Karol Szymanowski Academy in Katowice. Her victorious performance of a composition by Oskar Nedbal at the Vítězslav Novák International Piano Competition in 2015 inspired her to release the historically first complete recording of Nedbal’s as-yet largely neglected piano works together with Czech Radio.

In 2019 Animal Music published her first fully authorial album titled INNER PLACE, recorded with a classic jazz trio setup of piano, double bass, percussion, which draws on jazz, classical music, and minimalism, with the slightest hint of pop.

Nikol uses a personalised system of notation to write her compositions, emphasising harmonic functions, major elements of melody, and intervals, unhampered by the rules and patterns of jazz. “I see my compositions more as ‘songs’ in which I can spontaneously express a story. Compared to classical music, I regard it as a more straightforward – and in a sense simpler – mode of expressing my emotions. And I don’t feel the need to belong to any specific genre,” she says of her work. However, her experience gleaned from the interpretation of classical music, mostly of the twentieth century, cannot be overlooked – both in the composition itself and in its performance.