Allstar Refjúdží Band - concert / garden of the Czernin Palace, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prague

The Allstar Refjúdží Band is a unique musical theatre project with significant social outreach. Its mission is through music and theatre productions to open topics connected with migration and to explore possibilities for resolving social problems. Musicaly the Allstar Refjúdží Band combines Kurdish folk and pop, East European accordion style, Chinese opera and pop music, Swiss tunes from mountaines and cabarets, brass, dixieland, rap and other music styles.

Since its founding in 2008 the band has performed at important festivals in Czech Republic and also abroad (in Warsaw, Berlin, Rotterdam, Haag, Haarlem and Utrecht). The band often plays in Slovakia. The Allstar Refjúdží Band is resident project of the Prague based Archa Theatre.

The music of ASRB is comprised of original compositions and traditional and popular songs with new arrangements. The music is inspired by a variety of folk and popular traditions - Chinese, Kurdish, Central and Eastern European and brass band music from New Orleans - but is contemporary in its form. It reflects the different cultural and ethnic backgrounds of the band members but strives to be an expression of their present reality. The lyrics of the songs are a combination of original texts by band members and associates of the band, and poems and writings  that lend themselves to the group's themes of voluntary and involuntary migration, human rights, racism and nationalism. They are sometimes personal and sometimes thematic and sometimes a combination of the two. A driving beat with instrumental arrangements for brass, woodwinds, strings and accordion is the basis for songs sung in five different languages.

The new album Who eats dogs? which was released on June 21, 2012, features several new band members, such as Lukáš Mičko (guitar) and Kryštof Verner (trumpet). Jing Lu, who among other things has adopted the so-called male voice of Beijing opera, lends the album a special flavour. The song Children's Dreams features three beatboxers from Ústí nad Labem (Marek Baláž, Patrik Gorol and Milan Makula), who rap their own poetry. Other special guests on the album include Ondřej Smeykal (didgeridoo), Jan Neruda (oud), Jaryn Janek (contrabass) and Tiny Beat (beatbox).

You can purchase band CDs at the Box Office of the Archa Theatre, after the concerts of the band and in the Indies MG distrubution.