Monday 24 October 2022, 7:30 p.m.
KRISTINA BARTA
Pianist and composer Kristina Barta is enjoying growing appreciation within the European jazz scene. She stands out among her male colleagues as a spectacular jazzwoman and ambassador of Czech music, who blazes her own distinctive path and whose style is described by reviewers as “fiery, forceful, and unrelentingly expressive”. Long-term fans of the Influencers of Resonance piano recital series were given a glimpse of her inner music world in a recording of Fresh Music Talks, her unique meeting with Nikol Bóková.
Kristina Barta presented herself to listeners in lucid strokes with her 2017 debut album EMA29, which was released in Austria after being three years in the making. Critics were thrilled, lauding its lyric melodies, distinctive appeal, and fresh approach to jazz standards. Kristina has a busy concert schedule both at home and abroad. She has performed on numerous renowned jazz stages, including Bremen’s Jazzahead!, the Montreaux Jazz Festival, the Steyr Jazz Festival, Jazzd’or in Strasbourg, D’Jazz Nevers, in Berlin’s A-Trane or in Bimhuis – an Amsterdam concert hall dedicated to jazz and improvised music.
Kristina Barta fostered her education at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory and then under Prof. Karel Růžička at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She performs solo and with her sister, the jazz vocalist and hornist Martina Barta, and participates in various projects. She released her first studio recordings in 2011 with her starting band Kikina B. She has won a number of awards both at home and abroad, such as the JazzPrix (2015), or the OSA Prize for Best Jazz Composition (for “Find Peace of Mind”) in 2016. The same year saw her ensemble, the Kristina Barta Trio (with bass guitarist Jan Fečo and percussionist Marek Urbánek), nominated to the Euroradio Jazz Competition by Czech Radio; the trio went all the way to the finals and performed at the contest’s finale in Amsterdam. In 2017 she won her first solo piano award at Powiew Młodego Jazzu in Poland.
Since 2015 she has performed at clubs and jazz festivals, first with her Kristina Barta Trio, then from 2019 with the quartet Event Horizon (Kristina’s piano is augmented by saxophonist Nela Dusová and double bassist Peter Korman, with Marek Urbánek on percussion), with which she recorded her latest album Love and Passion (Alessa Records, 2021); the compositions are characterised by original textures, layered counterpoint, and rich harmonics. The recording was enthusiastically received by critics, who appreciated its “unbridled creativity and quality fully on par with international output”.