Český slavík

Český slavík (English: Czech Nightingale) is a Czech award, similar in nature to the American Grammy Award, to recognize outstanding achievement and annual popularity in the Czech music industry. It was established in 1996 as the successor of Zlatý slavík awards, which was established in 1962 in Czechoslovakia by magazine Mladý svět and Smena na nedeľu, which continued until 1991. "The 16th Cesky Slavik" was held on November 25, 2011 at the State Opera, in the Czech Republic, Prague.

Since 1999, the chart has been sponsored by the mineral water producer Mattoni and hence officially known as Český slavík Mattoni, or Mattoni's Czech Nightingale.

Current award categories are "Male Singer", "Female Singer", "Musical Group", and "Absolute Nightingale".

Winners

Leaders

With eighteen Český slavík awards each, Karel Gott and Lucie Bílá are the most successful artists in the history of the poll to date. They are followed by the band Kabát that earned ten awards, and the groups No Name and Lucie.

Karel Gott

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Karel Gott (born July 14, 1939 in Plzeň) is a Czech Schlager singer, and an amateur painter. He is considered the most successful male singer in former Czechoslovakia and currently in the Czech Republic; he was elected the Most Favorite Male Singer in the annual national poll Český slavík (English: Czech Nightingale) in total forty times, most recently in 2015. He also gained widespread fame in the German-speaking countries and is a fluent speaker of the language. Worldwide he has sold estimated 50 - 100 million records with his songs, 23 million of them in the German speaking market, and about 15 million in former Czechoslovakia and its successor states, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Of his debute LP in Russia (Melodiya, 1977) there were sold over 5,5 million copies.

Biography

Gott was born in Pilsen, at that time Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, now Plzeň, Czech Republic), and has lived in Prague since age 6. His family was German Bohemian descent, but has assimilated into Czech. He initially wanted to study art, but failed the exams at UMPRUM, the renowned School of Industrial Art, upon which he began training as an electrician. On completing his studies, he began working as an electrician, but was soon fascinated by the new types of music flooding the city, and became interested in jazz. He experimented with playing the bass and the guitar, but eventually decided to focus on singing, studying it privately. During the 1950s, he occasionally performed as an amateur singer and often participated in competitions.

Lucie Bílá

Lucie Bílá (born April 7, 1966 as Hana Zaňáková) is a Czech pop singer. With a powerful, distinctively intense voice and impressive range, she is one of the most famous and celebrated female artists in Czech Republic history. According to her label, EMI Czech Republic, the singer has sold over one million albums by now.

Biography

Lucie Bílá (born Hana Zaňáková) was born in the town of Otvovice in Czechoslovakia, where she was raised and where she attended a secondary school. Before she became involved in the field of music, she trained to be a seamstress.

Bila's first experiences with show business were as a member of the rock bands Rock-Automat and Arakain. In 1980, she was noticed by Czech music producer Petr Hannig, who created her stage name Lucie Bílá (literally, Lucy White) and penned her first recorded songs. Interestingly, her name change was originally due to confusion with another famous Czech singer, Hana Zagorová. For over three decades, Bílá has had tremendous professional success among Czechs in a broad range of endeavors, starring in the best-known stage musicals in the country, releasing several popular solo albums, and starring in several films and television specials. For several years in a row in the 2000s she topped the list of the most popular Czech singers in the coveted Český slavík awards.

Czech language

Czech (/ˈtʃɛk/; čeština Czech pronunciation: [ˈt͡ʃɛʃcɪna]), formerly known as Bohemian (/boʊˈhiːmiən, bə-/;lingua Bohemica in Latin), is a West Slavic language majorly influenced by Latin, spoken by over 10 million people. It is the official language in the Czech Republic (where most of its speakers live), and has minority language status in Slovakia. Czech's closest relative is Slovak, with which it is mutually intelligible. It is closely related to other West Slavic languages, such as Silesian and Polish. Although most Czech vocabulary is based on shared roots with Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages, many loanwords (most associated with high culture) have been adopted in recent years.

The language began in its present linguistic branch as Old Czech before slowly dwindling in importance, dominated by German in the Czech lands. During the mid-eighteenth century, it experienced a revival in which Czech academics stressed the past accomplishments of their people and advocated the return of Czech as a major language. It has changed little since this time, except for minor morphological shifts and the formalization of colloquial elements.