Zuzana Navarová
| Zuzana Navarová | |
|---|---|
Zuzana Navarová in 2003 in Vsetín.
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| Background information | |
| Born | 18 June 1959 |
| Origin | Hradec Králové, Czechoslovakia |
| Died | 7 December 2004 (aged 45) |
| Genres |
Folk music World music |
| Occupation(s) | Singer |
| Notable instruments | |
| Percussion | |
Zuzana Navarová de Tejada (18 June 1959, Hradec Králové – 7 December 2004, Prague) was a Czech singer and songwriter. She began her career in the early 1980s as a member of Nerez, and gradually become one of the most significant personalities of the Czech folk and world music scene. Her style was partially inspired by Latin American music.
Navarová studied Spanish and Czech language at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of the Charles University in Prague. A part of her studies Navarová spent in Havana, Cuba where she took music inspiration for her later career. Following her studies she began to work as a teacher. At the end of the 1980s, together with fellow musicians from Nerez, she studied also at the Prague Conservatory. Although she began her music career as a student, with the band Výlety, her breakthrough only came in early 1980s, when she joined Nerez. She met co-founding members of Nerez, Zdeněk Vřešťál and Vít Sázavský, during her studies in Prague. The performances with the band brought her first critical acclaim and popularity. In 1982, she won the best singer award at the festival Vokalíza in Prague.
In the 1990s, she began her brief solo career. Her only solo album Caribe she released with Caribe Jazz Quintet in 1992. It was sung in Spanish, in a Latin American musical style, using songs by Pablo Milanés and José Antonio Méndez. Shortly after that, she started a long-lasting collaboration with Colombian songwriter and guitarist Iván Gutiérrez. In 1991, the Czech Music Foundation awarded her as the best librettist of 1990.Nerez ended its activities in 1993, following the recording of the album Nerez v Betlémě. In 1994 she recorded another album with the band Tres, and since 1998 she began collaboration with the band Koa. In 2000, Gutiérrez moved to Madrid and Koa engaged a Romani musician Mário Bihári, with whom Navarová collaborated for the rest of her career.
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