Folk Band
FRGAL

Even though the band name is a bit misguiding, it resides in Olomouc. Wallachian songs belong to its repertoire, but are not the major ones. The town of Olomouc prompts for local “Hana” folklore, but the band performs especially Slovak, Moravian and Czech folk songs. Hungarian, Romanian, Gipsy or Jewish folk music are part of its repertoire as well. In short, the band prefers energetic music rich of expression and technique.

The beginning is dated to the year 1996, when the band did not have refined repertoire neither name. A group of amateurish music enthusiasts, who mostly graduated local school of arts, performed in various occasions. When they were first addressed to perform officially for public, hastily, practically by a pint of beer, the name FRGAL came out.

The repertoire has been slowly refined in course of time according to the interest of both listeners and band members, and folk songs began to dominate. In 2001 FRGAL started partnership with Olomouc folk dancing ensemble Dunajec, which acts from the year 1958 already. Thanks to Dunajec the band still more focused to folk music and interpretation. The band performs in festivals at home and abroad either separately or with dancers, several times represented the Czech Republic abroad, performs in celebrations, weddings and all sorts of cultural events.

There were many musicians in FRGAL already and the count has been finally fixed to 5. If needed, of course, we always supplement the staff from the ranks of former members or other external 'collaborators', a really large number of whom have accumulated during the period of the band's existence. We still take playing as a joy, hobby and relaxation, but we already try to keep the number of performances at a reasonable level, so that we can devote ourselves to other activities, families, friends, etc. Over the years, most of the musicians finished their studies, started families and a regular working life with all it brings. Although most of the FRGAL members are graduated professional musicians, they still like to play folk songs "amateurly" for the pleasure of themselves and our listeners.

We saw a lot of places abroad and in our homeland, met a lot of interesting people, established many new friendships, and we are returning to some 'stations' repeatedly. I would mention, for example, playing for climbers, local residents and other visitors on various occasions in Adrspach at the inn U Tosovaka, where we have visited 8 times since 2011. Since 2003, we have been going to play at the carnival in the picturesque magical village of Trstenice near Litomysl. Several times we had the opportunity to play surrounded by beautiful pure nature on the protected meadows above the village of Chebzi during the folklore mowing organized by the Brontosaurus movement. We also repeatedly spent several days and nights at Krivoklat Castle, when we performed as part of the castle festivities under the auspices of the National Monument Institute. In the years 2006-2011, we repeatedly visited the small town of Pribyslav and played at wine tastings, celebrations and especially at the biggest meeting of fire trucks, their drivers and crews in the Czech Republic called PyroCar. We also perform regularly at concerts organized by musical schools, so that especially children and young people have the opportunity to get to know folk songs performed by the folk band or even try to play or sing with us. These performances have an unforgettable atmosphere and we took away unforgettable experiences from them, both for us and, I believe, for the children as well. As a folk band we not only play folk songs (at weddings we usually have a repertoire of classical or modern music), but we also prepared an evening of operetta melodies, where the line-up of our folk band was expanded by other musicians and professional singers, so that we could play and sing for the audience well-known and popular melodies in this non-traditional line-up. In the Samples section, you will find a Czech Television report from one of these events.

Before the end of 2023, the band leader decided to modernize the music website so that it would at least somewhat correspond to modern standards and correctly display all information on any devices. The current form of the website was launched on January 15, 2024, the RSS channel is also functional. We also leave an electronic trail on Facebook and YouTube. You can find the brief history as well as other promo files in the Information section.