Jana Tauchmanová

* 1941

  • "Špindleráček is our second child because we basically devoted as much as we could to it. Maybe it wasn't possible to devote more than that. If I only think about the organizational matters that my husband managed... first of all, organizational matters, then financial resources. When the ensemble already meant something, when it already had trips planned around Europe, it's not all that simple. This is his work: photographs, arrangements, writing a chronicle. You can't even imagine that. For example, when we went to the Europiade, we went to some festival, it actually meant half a year of preparation. In the lump. Rehearsals at least two to three times a week with the ensemble: dance, singing, with soloists: we had solo singers and solo narrators. Here, this stove is a witness to how many storytellers stood here because we invited them to our home. They told the stories of Mrs Kubátová, Mr Horáček, Mr Buchar and so on."

  • "Yes. Most of them, like us, were probably immigrants. But now I will focus on Mr Director Kratochvíl: another personality who greatly influenced my life until the last days of his life. Cultural life in Vrchlabí was thanks to, as you say, those immigrated people who came from different parts where they were already used to working in choirs, in orchestras, theatre groups, in museums and I don't know where else I can remember, so they managed to transfer that life to Vrchlabí. Vrchlabí, let's say, in the middle of the 1950s, had such an extremely rich social life, precisely thanks to Mr Josef Václav Kratochvíl, who was the first director of the Music School in Vrchlabí from 1945 and worked here until 1958. I will return to our move from Brno to Vrchlabí. Of course, our parents were also interested in where my brother and I would continue learning to play musical instruments. And so I entered the Music School, which was at that time, located on the square, where – I think – today the Police of the Czech Republic is based. And there I continued to play the piano with Mrs Marie Kastnerová, the eldest. There, of course, I joined the Vrchlabští zpéváčci (little singers from Vrchlabí), a choir led by the director Kratochvíl."

  • "It didn't look like there would be an ensemble right away. We are at school, not only the teachers, but I taught music here, and we sang a lot. And I'll follow up on something: Vrchlabí Gymnasium, at that time, an eleven-year high school. In the morning - on Monday, or whatever day it was - all the classes got out of their classrooms at five minutes to eight. They exercised in the corridor and then sang. And I remembered it, and we also started doing it here (in Špindlerův Mlýn) - we performed the so-called Songs of the Week. The teachers would write the song lyrics on the blackboard, and one of our students, who played the harmonica, played the harmonica on the school radio, and the whole school learned that song. We started with Czech and Moravian songs, and then we started adding Krkonoše songs as well. And you know it best, there will be moments in class - it doesn't work now, they don't understand me now - that's the fatigue. The reasons are various. Personal or social, any. Alright, let's go practice. First between the desks, then in the corridor, then meeting in the gym in the afternoon. And so it has begun. And then the first steps, the first dances, then I can already do something, the first two dances, then we'll perform it somewhere."

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    Špindleruv Mlýn, 27.07.2022

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Stories of 20th Century
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Špindleráček is our second child

Period photograph, Jana Tauchmanová in 1958
Period photograph, Jana Tauchmanová in 1958
zdroj: witness archive

Jana Tauchmanová, née Koutníková, was born on April 8, 1941, in Brno. In her childhood, she learned to play the piano and sing from Kapráls, a well-known Brno musical family. At the age of nine, she and her family moved to Vrchlabí. Jana immediately started participating in the work in the local ethnographic collections Krakonoš and Hořec. She established close personal long-term contacts with the Krkonoše writer and fairy tale collector Maria Kubátová. Initially, Jana wanted to study piano and singing. Still, in the end, she decided differently: after obtaining a pedagogical education, she briefly taught at the Czech Pioneer School in Seč, then in Vrchlabí, and then for 37 years at an elementary school in Špindlerův Mlýn. Together with her husband, František Tauchman, who directed the school until 1968, they founded and led the Špindleráček folklore group during the normalization period. From modest local beginnings, with hard work and enthusiasm, they developed into an ensemble that performed successfully at home and abroad. It had a singing, dancing, musical, solo and storytelling section. Mr and Mrs Tauchman were its soul for 41 years. They influenced generations of local children and adults. Špindleráček is still active today, since 2013, under the direction of Ctibor Vrabec, a member of the ensemble‘s dance section. In 2022, it celebrated its 50th anniversary.