Iva Bittova
   Artist: Iva Bittova
Genre(s):
Ethnic
Discography:
   Cikori
Year: 2001
Tracks: 9
   River Of Milk
Year: 1992
Tracks: 11
   Iva Bittova
Year: 1990
Tracks: 14
Singer and fiddler Iva Bittová is one of the few artists from the Czech Republic to enjoy an international calling. Her resistless charm, original use of voice, and fondness of melodies that sit on the perimeter of avant-garde and resort area nursery rhymes south Korean won her devoted fans around the worldly concern, although the magnetic core of her audience resides in Eastern Europe.
Iva Bittová was born July 7, 1958, in Bruntal, Moravia (Czechoslovakian Republic). The second of deuce-ace daughters, she grew up in a musical environment. Her father, Koloman Bitto, played guitar, trumpet, and double bass in ethnic music and classical ensembles. Her mother, Ludmila Bittová, a trained instructor, exhausted her life sentence vocalizing in professional vocal ensembles. During Iva's childhood the household traveled a lot betwixt towns as her father of the Church changed jobs oft. She took concert dance and fiddle lessons, and performed children's parts onstage. The household eventually settled in Brno, and there she saturated her interests on field, completing her drama studies in college. For the next x days she worked as an actress, appearing on goggle box and in a fistful of Czech feature films, including Jaromil Jires' Ostrov Stribrnych Volavek (The Island of Silver Herons) and ZápisnÃk Zmizeleho (Diary of a Lost Soul).
In the early '80s, Bittová renewed her interest in the violin. She began lessons with Rudolf Stastny and started to develop her singular outspoken techniques, made of whispers, grunts, and moans, along with a playful, well-nigh empty-headed tone. Her first gear musical partner was drummer Pavel Fajt (Dunaj, later with Pluto, the Danubians) with whom she recorded her first record, Iva Bittová & Pavel Fajt, in 1985. She besides released a few solo EPs and recorded with Dunaj during these first gear long time (her tenure with this influential avant-rock grouping would net from 1985 to 1988). Her irregular LP with Fajt, Svatba (The Wedding), was picked up for international distribution by Review Records. That's how it came to the attention of ex-Henry Cow phallus Chris Cutler and finally to Fred Frith. The originative avant-garde guitarist featured the duette in the 1989 motion picture and soundtrack Step Across the Border, giving them their first international exposure and spawning a circuit outside of Eastern Europe.
Bittová's first gear full-length solo album came out in 1991 on Pavian, followed the next year by River of Milk, her first gear U.S. release. During the mid-'90s she worked chiefly as a solo artist, recording two more albums for BMG, merely she also complete her association with Fajt and Dunaj on the 1995 Pustit MusÃs and made her first foray into classical euphony with a series of concerts and a CD of Béla Bartók's violin duets (with Dorothea Kellerová).
In 1997, Bittová teamed up with Rale guitarist VladimÃr Václavek to criminal record the beautiful BÃlé Inferno (on Indies). This and the 1998 eponymous solo CD released on Nonesuch reanimated her international career. Václavek stormed through a number of festivals around the world, playing in Europe, Japan, Canada, and the U.S. and besides released an album in September 2001.
Live: George Michael

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