Winners of Czeching 2017: Retro-futuristic Zagami Jericho and Lazer Viking

The five promising Czech projects Cold Cold Nights, HRTL, WLW8, Zagami Jericho and Lazer Viking, were nominated by local music publicists and music directors and were judged by a panel of professionals representing public radio stations and music clubs from over ten different European countries. The reaction of the foreign judges was very positive and together with the Czech jury the professionals chose the young producer and singer Zagami Jericho as the winner. Zagami was nominated by Jiří Špičák who is considering her to be the best breakthrough artist on Czech scene. The eighteen years old artist released her debut City is My Church last year and she immediately caught the attention of the audience, music publicists and festivals alike. Thanks to her unique expression and a talent for producing and composing, Zagami was nominated for the Newcomer of the Year at the Vinyla Awards and was successful on the Radio Wave’s Starter show.

The next step is obvious. The success of Zagami at this year’s Czeching will give her the opportunity to record new EP at Czech Radio’s studios. The digital version as well as vinyl will be released at the beginning of January 2018. She will perform at Eurosonic, the biggest European showcase festival, and at two clubs within the Liveurope network. Her music will also be included in the Music Exchange of the European Broadcasting Union, a repository of recordings shared by all the European public radio stations.

The public also chose their winner, Jakub Kaifosz’s rock’n’roll project Lazer Viking, nominated by the music director of the MeetFactory club, Michal Brenner, who admired the uniqueness and showmanship of the artist. Lazer Viking will perform at a joint project of Radio Wave and Slovak Radio FM Audioport, and will receive fitted promotional support.

This year’s afternoon program of Czeching Showcase was filled with even more discussions and a new networking session “Reviews Face to Face”, where young bands had a chance to meet with music publicists and more experienced musicians and managers. As the coordinator of Czeching Marie Čtveráčková mentions, “Czeching originally started as a discussion platform and critical debate about building music career and music export should always be present. It is very important, even more so now that Czech Music Office was established.”

Therefore this year more discussions were held with foreign guests as well focusing, for example, on the topic of progressive radio dramaturgy with the representatives of Slovenian station VAL202 Jernej Sobočan and Polish Rádio Czwórka Norbert Borzym, or on the passion for music and the importance of courage when advocating for progressive music with the famous British DJ and host of the BBC 6 station Mary Anne Hobbs, who’s selection of the best of progressive electronic music was the highlight of the whole event. The finale debate was dedicated to the topic of music export with Márton Náray, the director of the Czech Music Office, Julien Fournier, the representative of the Belgian music export office Wallonie-Bruxelles Musique and Elise Phamgia, the coordinator of the Liveurope platform. The afternoon program was supported by Czech Music Office.