Music in the Ministry

Not long after East and West Germany united, Czechoslovakia was actually becoming 2 nations. In 1993, this one country became the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The new Czech Republic elected the playwright, Vaclav Havel, as its president. Havel had spent time in prison for criticizing communism and was inspired by the American musician, Frank Zappa. When Havel became president, he asked Zappa to take a position with the Czech Ministry of Culture.

Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, was the site of a trading post over 2,000 years ago. Great cathedrals and castles from the middle ages can still be visited - the Czech President actually lives in a castle! The Prague Chamber Orchestra is unusual in that they often perform without a conductor. Prague is the city where the famous German writer Franz Kafka and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke lived and wrote. Champion tennis players Ivan Lendl and Martina Navratilova (who won Wimbledon 9 times!) have also called Prague home. And the composer Antonin Dvorak studied at the Organ School of Prague. He would later take a trip to America where his symphony From the New World was premiered by The New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall.