Štěpánka Balcarová (CZ)
trumpet
Recent winner of the Anděl - Coca Cola 2023 musical award in jazz category.
Štěpánka Balcarová is a Czech trumpet player, composer and conductor. In 2012 she mastered at jazz trumpet at the prestigious Polish music academy The Karol Szymanovski Academy of Music in Katowice. Later she focused on the studies of composition and arrangement in Graz, Austria, under the tutoring of the renowned composer and bandleader Ed Partyka. Štěpánka currently lives in Prague. She teaches at the Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory and at the jazz department of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She is a leader of several bands: the jazz big band Concept Art Orchestra, her septet featuring the Polish singer Malgorzata Hutek, and her new established Czech-Polish quartet. Since 2019, she has been preparing a music show for the Czech radio called Jazzový podvečer. The listeners can hear the show every fourth Sunday of the month from 18:00 on the Vltava station.
In the past she was awarded in several jazz competitions for her playing and composing skills.
Štěpánka Balcarová has made several music albums solely made of her own compositions. Two of them have received the Czech music award Anděl in the category of jazz and blues: Inner Spaces for the album Light Year (Animal Music, 2012) and Concept Art Orchestra for the album The Prague Six (Animal Music, 2015). Another four of her albums were nominated for Anděl Music Awards in the jazz category: Life and Happiness of Julian Tuwim (Animal Music, 2017), Concept Art Orchestra for the albums Vánoce dospělých (Animal Music, 2018), 100 Years (Animal Music, 2020) and Štěstí / Happiness (Radioservis, 2022).
