The remarkable Slovak formation Drť, centred around the composer and multi-instrumentalist Miroslav Tóth, is preparing the premiere of a new programme for Colours of Ostrava 2024, with Slovak tango as its basic starting point.
Miroslav Tóth is a classically trained musician and a keen experimenter who has also been or is active in the Shibuya Motors or Dystopic Requiem Quartet. In 2018, he wrote the composition Quarteto siahajúcich chápadiel in memory of the murdered journalist Jan Kuciak and his partner, which was performed by the renowned Kronos Quartet at the Pohoda festival in the same year. The reflection of current social events and the desire to reflect a wider context in their work were also behind the founding of the Drť ensemble, which, in addition to Tóth, includes exceptional instrumentalists such as Marek Buranovský, Lucie Chutková, Márton Csernovszky and Josef Krupa. The first two studio albums - Puntičkár and Minister - also feature Pohoda festival director Michal Kaščák (otherwise known as Bez ladu a skladu), who recited recordings of the testimony of former Czechoslovak State Security chief Alojz Lorenz into the group's background music. Last year, Drť released two more albums, on which the Slovak writer and philosopher Fedor Gál appeared at the microphone.
The performance at the Colours of Ostrava will be the premiere of the new line-up, which includes, in addition to the aforementioned members, the singer Zuzana Husarová and Katarína Máliková. Remaining a distinctly eclectic music on the borderline between avant-garde, electronic and experimental, the basic ground on which Drť's new work is presented is the Slovak tango. As a further hint, the band adds the slogan "prísne tichá" and reveals only that the new album will be called Drôtenka.