About Czeching

Czeching is a helping hand outstretched towards the local music scene. Radio Wave has been providing opportunities for the best acts on the Czech progressive scene to make important steps towards international audiences and listeners since 2013. Czeching grants its winners a chance to create and release a professional recording of their music, make a video, takes care of the media support, sends them out to the biggest European showcase festival Eurosonic Noorderslag and opens the doors into European radios.

Czeching 2019

A jury of 16 experts from 13 countries (music professionals from BBC, Puls, Rai Radio 2, Radio France, FM4 and music festivals such as Eurosonic Noorderslag or MENT) chooses the winner from five nominated Czech alternative pop hopefuls through a vote. Each musician, band or project receives media support (photo shoots, video and audio spots, web and radio interviews, Radio Wave Studio Session live video-streams).

The winner gets an opportunity to record a single and shoot a video (both financed by Czech Radio), take part in a weekend-long workshop with a professional coach, as well as a chance to perform at the prestigious Eurosonic Noorderslag showcase festival in Groningen, Netherlands. The winner’s music will be given air time in international radios across the European Broadcasting Union supported by on air, web and social media promotion via Radio Wave mapping their visual, media and live presentation creative process.

This year’s nominees will be announced at the end of March. They will then take part in the Czeching Showcase hosted by Metronome Festival Prague, appearing on the Radio Wave Stage on the 22nd of June 2019. The winner will be chosen and unveiled at the end of the Showcase with the international jury in attendance. The nominated musicians will also get a chance to meet with the jurors and industry professionals. The nominees are chosen by Radio Wave’s director of music in cooperation with Metronome Festival.

Czeching Showcase 2018|foto:Jiří Šeda

Czeching Showcase

Radio Wave has been organizing the Czeching Showcase, a public live event housing performances by all five nominees, culminating in the annual winner announcement since 2016. The winner is then granted six monts of support in the field of music export.

The Showcase kicks off with an educational afternoon of panel discussions on the topics of finding new talent and their export. Some of the guest speakers have been Jonas Vebner – director of the Berlin branch of Music Norway, renown DJ and BBC’s director of music Mary Anne Hobbs, Jiří Moravčík – Czech Music Crossroads showcase festival organizer, Norbert Borzym from Polish radio station Czwórka and many others.

Czeching Showcase 2019 will be broadcasted live on Radio Wave and interviews with this year’s nominees, industry professionals and international jurors will be heard throughout the day’s radio broadcast as well. A live video from the event will be streamed on Radio Wave’s Facebook. Live videos of each nominee’s performance will be then posted throughout Radio Wave online outlets (web, Facebook, YouTube). All the materials including interviews, reports, live videos, audio, photo gallery, etc. will be made available on the project’s page rozhlas.cz/czeching. A selection of the content will also make its way to Radio Wave’s webpage wave.cz and its social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube). Audio recordings from the Czeching Showcase will also be provided to European radios associated with the EBU in coherence with the International Music Exchange program.

SoundCzech support of the Czeching project

Czeching has been working with the Czech export office SoundCzech (formerly Czech Music Office) since 2017. In 2017 CMO financially supported the Czeching Showcase, which has seen a great response from the public, musicians and industry proffesionals both in 2016 and 2017, completely filling up the Czech Radio’s parking garages where the event took place. In 2018 SoundCzech supported the panel discussions with experts as well as the Showcase and an educational workshop Czeching Skills, which was open to any musician, manager, promoter, etc. All events took place in Prague’s MeetFactory club. The workshop was a great success, the interest reaching over its capacity.

Czeching history

2013 – pilot year of the project under the name Shootout Special Edition. Expert jury chose female duo Never Sol as the winner. Never Sol registered favorable reception form Austrian, Danish, German, Slovak, French and Sweedish radio stations.
2014 – second year of the project now under the current name of Czeching. For the first time an international jury became part of the project. A new “fan favorite” category where the winner is decided by listener votes is established. The jury chose surf-punk trio Wild Tides as the winner. Shoegaze newcomers Manon Meurt won the “fan favorite” vote.
2015 – third year of the project sees a 17 member international jury of industry professionals from radio stations from 10 European countries established. Their votes propel downtempo duo VR/NOBODY to victory. They are the first victors to play Eurosonic Noorderslag (this has become tradition since 2015 for Czeching). Listeners from the public are most interested in electronic producer Aid Kid. Both winning projects are awarded international support in the following 6 months.
2016 – fourth year sees the international jury choose producer duo Himalayan Dalai Lama. The fan vote goes to Ba:zel. All the nominees play a live set during the Czeching Showcase in the parking garage of Czech Radio. This is the establishing year of the Showcase.
2017 – international jury chooses female singer and producer Zagami Jericho as the victor od the fifth year. She is the first to have the opportunity to shoot a music video as part of the project. The public chooses Lazer Viking as their winner. Zagami Jericho plays a show at Eurosonic Noorderslag. Lazer Viking performs during the international event of Radio Wave and Rádio_FM Audioport in Bratislava.
2018 – sixth year sees the “fan favorite” category cancelled. The sole victor of Czeching 2018 is female singer and rapper Hellwana, who records an EP and shoots a video as part of the project. Apart from her successful live set at Eurosonic Noordeslag, she performs during the international event of Radio Wave and Rádio_FM Audioport in Bratislava.

Czeching 2017 vyhrála Zagami Jericho|foto:Jiří Šeda

International Jury of Czeching 2020

Dan Baláž (Rádio FM, Slovensko)
David Nguyen (Rock For People, Česká republika)
Dénes Pécsi-Szabó (Budapest Showcase Hub, Maďarsko)
Hervé Riesen (Radio France, Francie)
Christoph Lindemann (PULS, Německo)
Jernej Sobočan (VAL 202, Slovinsko)
Karel Veselý (Radio Wave/Deník Alarm, Česká republika)
Katja Thalerová (SHARPE Festival, Slovensko)
Kevin Cole (KEXP, USA)
Laurent Marceau (EBU, Švýcarsko)
Marek Mikič (NotAnAgency/Festival 66 hodín, Slovensko)
Márton Naray (SoundCzech, Česká republika)
Mirca Lotz (musicBYwomen, Německo)
Norbert Borzym (Radio Czwórka, Polsko)
Oskar Strajn (Eurosonic, Nizozemsko)
Tsvetan Tsvetanov (Radio Nacional de Bulgaria, Bulharsko)