Libor Šmoldas

Apart from his career as a guitarist, Libor Šmoldas is also a recognized composer and sought-after pedagogue. His performing activities span four continents and have included appearances in New York, Washington, Sydney, Peking, and many other jazz centres in the world. His quartet was the first Czech band to have toured in the USA and he has been going back on regular basis, apart from annually touring in Australia, Holland, the UK and other countries. In the Czech Republic, he has played more than two thousand club concerts and appeared at festivals such as the Prague Spring, Prague Proms, Brno Jazz Fest, Bohemia Jazz Fest, the Strings of Autumn, and The Leoš Janáček International Music Festival, and has collaborated with some of the top Czech jazz musicians, including Ondřej Pivec, Robert Balzar, and David Dorůžka. He organizes regular jam sessions and most frequently appears with his blues Organ Trio.

The genres that Libor Šmoldas has been pursuing most include jazz, bossa nova, blues, soul-jazz and modern jazz. „Inspiration mostly comes from above, but sometimes also from below or from within. I’ve always been influenced by people close to me and the music I like,“ he says.

Artist´s picks from the Animal Music catalogue: Andy Schofield, Najponk and Jaromír Honzák, „among many others“.