1963

1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (dominical letter F) of the Gregorian calendar, the 1963rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 963rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 63rd year of the 20th century, and the 4th year of the 1960s decade.

Events

January

Karel Gott

HIDDEN ERROR: Usage of "signature" is not recognizedHIDDEN ERROR: Usage of "voice department" is not recognized

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.

Waldemar Matuška

Waldemar Matuška (Czech pronunciation: [ˈvaldɛmar ˈmatuʃka]; July 2, 1932 – May 30, 2009) was a Czechoslovak singer who became popular in his homeland during the 1960s and 1970s. In 1986, he emigrated to the United States.

Early career

Waldemar Matuška was born in Košice, then Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), and spent his whole childhood in Prague. His mother was a singer in the Vienna operetta theatres. He worked as a glassmaker and performed on various musical instruments with many different bands. In 1960 he recorded his first song Suvenýr (Souvenir). Later he became an actor in the theatre Semafor. On the stage he performed with Karel Štědrý, Jiří Suchý and, starting in 1961, with Eva Pilarová. He won the Zlatý slavík ("Golden Nightingale") music poll twice, in 1962 and 1967, and placed second several times.

As his popularity grew he started acting in movies and writing songs for movies. Waldemar and Eva Pilarová left Semafor and joined the ensemble of the theatre Rokoko. But Pilarová soon returned to Semafor, and Matuška began singing with Helena Vondráčková, Marta Kubišová, Jitka Zelenková and others. He participated in other projects besides the theatre, mainly duets with Hana Hegerová and Karel Gott.

Helena Vondráčková

HIDDEN ERROR: Usage of "Colour" is not recognized

Helena Vondráčková (born 24 June 1947, Prague) is a Czech singer whose career has spanned five decades.

Early life/career

Beginnings

Vondráčková spent her childhood years in the town of Slatiňany. She took piano lessons from an early age. In 1964 Vondráčková came to prominence when she won a national talent contest that 27 of April then that 3 of September she made her first recording: a Czech rendering of "Red River Valley" entitled "Červená řeka" ("Red River Valley"). In 1965, the year she graduated high school, Vondráčková was voted the most popular singer in Czechoslovakia by the readers of the magazine Mladý svět earning the Golden Nightingale award for the only time in her career although Vondráčková would subsequently earn second or third place a total of twenty-seven times with eleven Silver Nightingale awards and sixteen Bronze Nightingale awards. In the summer of 1966 Vondráčková began her music festival career competing in the inaugural Bratislavska Lyra festival as a duo with Marta Kubišová: their entry "Oh Baby Baby" earned the second-place Silver Lyre award. Vondráčková's music festival debut as a solo act was at the Rio de Janeiro International Music Festival in November 1967 where her entry "Vzdaleny hlas" received the Golden Rooster award: in June 1968 Vondráčková returned Bratislavska Lyra in a duo with Waldemar Matuska and a resultant Bronze Lyre award for their entrant "To Se Nikdo Nedovi" and in 1969 Vondráčková participated in the 1969 European Cup Festival in Knokke Belgium.

The Four Seasons

The Four Seasons, originally referring to the traditional seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter, may refer to:

Music and dance

Visual arts

Film and television