Prague, March 27 (CTK) – The Roma children’s choir Chavorenge of singer and musician Ida Kelarova will present a CD entitled Hej Romale it has recorded together with the Czech Philharmonic (CF) in Prague’s Svanda Theatre on Tuesday.
The joint project of CF and Kelarova is to support Roma children from Czech and Slovak settlements, “ghettos” and other socially excluded locations.
In the first studio recording of Chavorenge, conductor Marko Ivanovic led the CF.
The CF and Chavorenge have been cooperating for five years, completing almost forty concerts in Prague’s Rudolfinum hall and in other venues in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, including a concert of the CF in Hradcany Square under the baton of Jiri Belohlavek, the former CF chief conductor, who died last year.
The cooperation has made an impact on dozens of Roma children and young people.
“Roma children miss the feeling of being welcome in the society. Their journey out of the vicious circle of settlements and ghettoes into the world, where something is expected of them, where they can trust themselves and are able to achieve something, is one of the most difficult paths. Even if the energy that we put into the children does not bear fruit immediately, I believe there is a hope for a change,” Kelarova said.
In May, the Chavorenge are to return to the Sluknov region, north Bohemia, and work together with local non-Roma singers in concerts in Varnsdorf and Rumburk.
A documentary film by director Tomas Kudrna named Ida’s Mission captures the successes as well as obstacles of the Chavorenge children when trying to move away from the socially excluded locations. It was filmed in the summer of 2015 in east Slovakia during the Romano drom summer art school and it captures the cooperation with the CF and the life in poor settlements.
This year, the Romano drom summer art school will take place in Romania, where the Chavorenge children are to get to know the local communities and their culture. In the autumn, they will tour Slovakia and they are discussing possible concerts in Austria and in Belfast.
