Photo: Cimbalom Guy / YouTube
Matěj Číp, a musician from a small village in Moravia, has devoted his life to playing the cimbalom, a hammered dulcimer from Central-Eastern Europe. After graduating from the Ostrava conservatory, he went on to study at the Northern State University in South Dakota, becoming the first ever cimbalom student at university level in the United States. He is now heading to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in New York City for his Master’s degree. His ambition is to spread the awareness of the instrument all over the world. I met with Matěj shortly before his departure to the US and I started by asking what brought him to study the cimbalom in the first place:
“The beginnings are connected with my family, especially with my grandmother. On her 70th birthday, we had a classic celebration in our village in Moravia and my parents decided to invite a cimbalom band, a traditional folk band.
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Author: Ruth Fraňková