My Life

Vrbno pod Pradědem

When I was born in Bruntál hospital, we lived in Vrbno pod Pradědem. Although we lived in this small town only until my second birthday, even up to this day I vividly remember the beautiful wild brook behind our house with big kingcups all around. I used to play in this brook even though it was icy cold, and I used to listen to the powerful sound of its stream, which fascinated me. I also remember the high mountains and the deep dense forest, where we used to play Indians. I always carried a big stick with me, which helped me not to be afraid.

A lady from the neighborhood used to tell us fairy tales in such a heart-felt way that many times I started to cry. I recall her vividly till this day – I can still see her sitting there on a cricket and myself staring at her with mouth wide open. I was happy.

Prešov

My mum decided that my daddy needed musical education and that we had to go with him, so that he could pursue his career. Out of the blue we moved to Prešov. I did not like that town at all and there was nothing there to inspire me. Maybe it is important to add that my dad used to play and exercise daily, he was learning to read music in order to, according to my mum, “work his way up”. I myself had to sing at the age when I probably could not even speak properly. My first song was “Kohutik jarabi” (“Little cock”):

Little cock
do not go into the garden
you might dig out a lilly
and then they kill you
And where they kill you
there they bury you
there under that bench
where young maidens sit.

My father always put me on the table where I used to stand and sing. I was very unhappy in Prešov.

Opava

My mum made another decision and we moved to Opava, where my father got a job at the Zdeněk Nejedlý Theater Orchestra. My mum became a nursery school director and she used to sing at the Moravian Teacher’s choir, where she also sang solo. I remember that I liked this music, because they mostly sang Janáček, but it was clear to me even then that I would never want to sing this way. Sometimes my sister Iva and I acted in children theater plays. I kind of liked this, but I did not get any kick out of it, as I had to act in the evenings, and in the morning I went to school and in the afternoon to the music school for lessons in either piano or cello. When I finally got home, there was a lot of homework to do and a lot of lamenting, so no time was left for me to play with friends outside. I hated many times all the things I had to do, because it was always an order from my mum, despite the fact she meant well.

I started learning to play piano when I was five, lead by my mother’s strict hand. I remember how I used to be beaten with a belt. It was as if someone was cutting my heart to pieces. However, the worst thing was when my daddy got an order from my mother to beat me up for something I had done. He always did what she had told him, but then I heard him crying in his bedroom, which hurt me the most.

My daddy was able to go on listening to my “music production” for hours. Later, when I could play a little, I played little pieces and when I managed to play them well, he burst into tears with happiness. He was this kind of person. He lived for music. He taught us not to be afraid in front of people. Many times it happened that he woke me up at night to play for his friends, whom he used to bring over to our house. This was how I gradually lost my shyness and unconsciously got accustomed.

Horné Saliby

My most powerful inspiration and memories come from the times when my father had me seated on his moped and took me with him to Horné Saliby to see his Roma family. Freedom. Love. Truth. Space. Life that I had dreamt about. There I had always seen my father happy. There I found out, what it does to a man when he is free, when he is not suffocated, when he can breathe freely. Dad used to be sad all his life, but in Saliby he was at home. There was singing and playing, crying and rejoicing. There were real feelings, unlike the life in the theater and among the actors, who struggled in vain to be true in their starring roles, which they fought for so much that they were even able to betray their friends in order to present themselves. Or unlike my ambitious mother, who pretended only so that everybody spoke well about us. Everybody’s opinion on us meant more to her than our hearts. In Saliby it was different.

Ostrava

I was not happy in Opava either, but I started to like playing piano and cello. Eventhough it wasn’t what I felt like doing, I had to start the studies at the Ostrava Conservatory, because it was an order from my mother and also my father’s wholehearted wish. I did not like it there at all. There I went downhill. I started to prefer friends who were much older than me and I got absolutely lost. I did not know where I belonged to or who I was. I had no idea what the hell was I doing there and why was I there. I was desperate.

Brno

My mother made yet another decision. This time we moved to Brno, because my father had to become even better. And so my father joined the Brno Radio Orchestra of Folk Instruments as a musician, later on as an arranger of Moravian, Slovak, Romanian, Hungarian and Roma folk music. I started to study at the Brno Conservatory. I used to run away from home. I was searching for – I did not know what. In Saliby, at my grandma’s I used to hide away and escape in the world of my dreams.

I gave birth to my son and for the first time I started to live and build up my own life. Tomáš‘s father did not want me, but then suddenly he wanted to marry me. I did not love him, but I got married to him. I was glad to be away from home at last.

I finished off with music…

Then I rebelled and finished off with everything and took up theater instead. My father begged me to stick to music and go on playing, he was kneeling in front of me, tears running down his face, telling me that music is everything, that it is the language everybody will understand and that if I fulfilled his greatest dream, only then he could die peacefully.

But I finished off with music nevertheless.

The offer from “Theater on a String” saved me. I began to sing, play, create and draw from myself. I was happy. I got divorced and started to seek my own way. At a festival in Denmark I fell in love idly, I was only thinking it was love. I moved to Wales, where I went through the hardest times of my life. However, now I know that they were the most important years for my future life.

Wales

We had no money, I sold my piano, I sold my violoncello, I didn’t speak the language, I knew nobody there, the world was too big. Depression, reality, shock. I gave birth, this time to a girl, depression, confusion, love. I hated everything. Darkness… And in January there came a letter:

Dear Iduška, such is the way of life, children are born and come to this world and then they leave again. Your daddy died in November.

I could not even cry then.

I lived in a marriage, which had nothing to do with love. I was desperate. I gave birth to a daughter, and I knew that I could not stop believing in love and searching for it.

My father loved us all. He had a beautiful Roma heart. After he died I started to give concerts and teach Roma songs I remembered from childhood. Gypsy music was played in our home in Saliby, but I never learned to speak Romany language. Grandma and grandpa forbade my father and his brothers and sisters learn Romany language, because for them it represented something really ugly. I understood that my father’s blood was running through my veins so strongly, that by singing I can at least give back all the love he gave to me and pass on his legacy to other people too.

I started to sing again.

I remembered the songs of my father, some melodies from Saliby came back to me and I started to sing. The first opportunity to sing for me was when someone remembered me, gave me a call and invited me for a concert. It was a great success. I do not even know what I was singing or playing. All I know is that I did not stop for an hour and a half. I came home and I had to search again. We moved to Denmark. In Denmark I started to teach singing. I taught gypsy songs and the students used to cry or rejoice and feel every note in-depth. Did I find my home then, or just an escape?

I felt more warm and more close, yet I felt a terrible loneliness, because I took up work so intimately connected to myself and to my heart, which I still had not understood, let alone someone else understanding me… Every day I used to sing till my voice got hoarse. The work I did was very demanding. All kinds of people used to come to my workshops, giving me a lot of their shit I did not really know how to deal with. I did not understand what I was doing, but the curiosity to know what lies beneath a human voice was stronger. I wanted to go deeper, I had to go on and search and the number of my questions was increasing, just like the number of my students did, till exhaustion.

It seems to me that the entire Denmark went through my workshops. I got an offer to do a one year tour around the entire northern Norway. We packed overnight and moved to Norway. I was teaching and giving concerts in every little village. It was magnificent. The nature was so strong, that I finally got close to death, something I feared so much before. It was a strong inspiration. Never again was I able to get so close to nature, as I was there, in the north.

Back to Wales

Two years later we found ourselves back to Wales again. My work was going fine, concerts and workshops were offered to me without any effort on my part, but the loneliness and lack of love reached such a level that I transgressed all the possible boundaries of human emotion and was surprised that I could have survived all this. I cried for three months and when someone asked me why I was crying, I knew not an answer. However, I found an immense strength in sadness.

I found happiness – the way back home

After fifteen years of searching for my own identity I got back to my roots, to a village where my father used to live. I came back home for good. For the first time in my life I can say that I am happy. I found a man who can love me the way I am. Together with my friend, my colleague, but most of all my greatest love Desiderius Dužda, we travel and give concerts and at the same time we teach Roma songs. We both are the founders of a Roma band called Romano Rat (Roma Blood).

I value life and I am grateful to it. I did not give up the painful journey through life and I suffered through new sources of power and inspiration.

I founded a School

I founded my own school – the “International School for Human Voice”, which should serve all people who search for their inner voice. I love my work and I am proud that I discovered one of the ways that can help us all to open to this real modern world, which kills our emotions because of its power. For I believe that if we can find our power, the power we need so much for us to be open, vulnerable but strong enough to stand up for ourselves and not to give up, we can remain and live open. Love is the strongest energy that exists. If we stop believing in love deep inside us, then we have given up.

I will sing. I must believe that I will be understood once, just like my father taught me.