Karel PlĂhal
Acting
Karel PlĂhal (* August 23, 1958 in PĹerov) is a Czech guitarist, singer, composer, lyricist, poet, music director and arranger. He graduated from the Secondary Industrial School of Mechanical Engineering in Olomouc, then worked as a designer, a fireman in the Olomouc theater and eventually became a songwriter, although he has no musical education. He has been playing the guitar since he was fifteen. He first played in the Olomouc underground country-swing bands HuÄka, FaleĹĄnĂisters and PlĂharmonyje. He had his first solo performance in 1983. Between 1985 and 1993 he collaborated with Emil PospĂĹĄil and in 1995â1999 he was accompanied by Petr Freund. Karel PlĂhal is a four-time winner of the Porta competition music festival award. He composed music for a number of productions at the Moravian Theater in Olomouc, including Goldilocks, The Servant of Two Masters, The Love of Don Perlimplin and the Passion of Belisina, Manon Lescaut, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Winter's Tale, The Passion and the Glorious Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus GiroflĂĄ. He set some of Kainar's poems to music, directing the recording of albums, such as Jarek Nohavica, Petr Fiala, the Ebony brothers and Bokomara. In 2006, he published a selection of his poems, Like cool in a fence, accompanied by illustrations by humorist and cartoonist Miroslav BartĂĄk. For his album VzduchoprĂĄzdniny, which was released in 2012, he won the AndÄl Award in the Folk & Country category. After a medical break caused by focal dystonia, which prevented him from playing the guitar, guitarist Petr Fiala began to accompany him at concerts in 2018. Karel PlĂhal is a very shy man. His shyness or anxiety is kindly caricatured in the film The Year of the Devil. At concerts, he addresses the closeness of the audience, for example, by having the spotlights set against his eyes so that he cannot see the audience clearly. "The original speech is further underlined by the small verses with which PlĂhal interweaves the whole performance. They reflect the details of everyday life and the point is always laughing at the audience. ⌠And when he returns to sign his books, he is again a timid and quiet man who he would rather not be. But that would be a great pity. "
