Czech-born jazz singer Barbora Tellinger on moving home after 50 years in South Africa
Barbora Tellinger is a Czech-born jazz singer, composer and music teacher who spent most of her life in South Africa, only returning to her native Czechia shortly before the covid pandemic broke out. After a successful career in the South African jazz scene, she now works with her husband, Grammy-nominated pianist John Fresk, performing under the name Tellinger and Fresk.
Born in Karlovy Vary, Barbora left the former Czechoslovakia with her parents at the age of five. I recently interviewed her after attending an intimate jazz concert which she hosted in her Prague apartment, and started right at the beginning - by asking her what prompted her parents to move halfway across the world to a country, climate and environment as different from communist Czechoslovakia as you could possibly get.
“Obviously, it was a defection. My parents were given the options of Canada or South Africa, because my father was a mining engineer. So those were the good prospects, and obviously the southern hemisphere was more of an attractive option - a complete change.”
Did you grow up speaking Czech, or feeling connected to your Czech heritage in any way?
“Oh yes, we spoke Czech throughout my life until I left home, and then I obviously spoke Czech when visiting. It became more and more of a kind of 'domácí čeština' - kitchen Czech - so I lost a lot of it. My school language and so on was English and Afrikaans.”
And how is your Czech now? Do you get by no problem?
“Much better. It's taken a while. My husband, John, is an American and they don't do Czech, as you probably know, so we speak English at home. And then in my work, I speak a lot of English too.
“But recently at a gig in Plzeň, I realised that if I was actually going to get the audience on my side, I would have to speak Czech, so I stumbled for two hours over the worst possible Czech. Even though I can speak it well, but you know when you're put on the spot...
“Anyway, apparently it's charming. Two standing ovations, so I can live with that [laughs].”
I'll bet. People here love it when foreigners speak Czech. You're a jazz singer - do you ever sing in Czech?
“I sing a few verses of one song, which growing up, I always thought was a Czech song, only to find out later on when I started singing jazz that no, it's just a jazz standard, and every jazz standard was translated into Czech anyway.”
How did you start your career as a jazz singer?
“I was always a singer and always wanted to be a singer. My mother was an opera singer and she sang in the Karlovarský opera. It was just something I always knew I was going to do.
“I studied several things and was quite an activist and a dissident in South Africa, and was arrested and jailed twice for my activities. But I never really completed anything, because music was always kind of pulling me.
“I did finish a diploma in fashion design of all things, so I can sew. But I was just always going to sing.”
Why jazz, as opposed to opera, like your mum?
“Well, I'd had my fill of opera by the time I was 10, I think. We spent every second weekend going to symphony concerts or my mother's concerts so I'd had enough of that.
“I started out doing cabaret and protest theatre, then I was the go-to rock singer for some years.
“I think one automatically gravitates towards jazz when you get bored with everything else because you can't really get bored of jazz.”
Are you into Czech jazz at all?
“A few weeks ago I went to Divadlo Semafor in Bubeneč to see Jiří Suchý. A friend treated me because she felt I needed to see him because he was apparently so active in jazz. It was lovely - a gorgeous band and everything. I was surprised to find that every jazz standard was in Czech.
“Otherwise, I'm not really that familiar with Czech jazz throughout the years, but we work a lot with the current Czech jazz musicians. But they do kind of global jazz - they get booked by the touring global artists that come here, and the local ones.
“I recently saw Vertigo at the Jazz Dock and now they're my favourite band by far. We have a lot of colleagues in common.
“I think when one is working all the time - teaching and playing and trying to create - you don't indulge too much in other music because you're so busy with it all the time.”
You mentioned that you were an activist in South Africa - I assume you mean against the former apartheid regime?
“Yes, an anti-apartheid activist, a member of the United Democratic Front. It was a no-brainer - you couldn't really be a young person and not get involved. They were the country's conscience.”
What was it like being in prison?
“It was only a few days and there was a large group of us. It's a nice anecdote.
“The worst was the actual arrest - the shambucking and the tear gas. But that happened at every protest.
“You know, you get someone to pay your bail after a few days and you're out. I mean, there's obviously a lot of verbal abuse and shoving, but it was bearable - others have worse tales to tell.”
You moved to South Africa when you were five and moved back 50 years later, was it?
“51 years later, yes, in 2019.”
What prompted that move?
“We had toured here three times and on our third tour, we stayed for two months. It was winter. I needed to see if I could survive a winter here.
“On our second tour, there was a heatwave, it was the middle of summer. I think we played about 18 concerts over three weeks. It was quite intense - and hot.
“It just felt like the right thing to do. We felt safe here, we felt that there was a future here, and that as jazz musicians we could actually work. Which is not really the situation anymore in South Africa.
“My husband, John, is a big googler, so he was going 'Wow! This is one of the 10 safest cities', which is completely the opposite of where we'd just come from.
“So we kind of started thinking about that, and I was ready for a change. I had been teaching at the University of Pretoria for 10 years and had been let go in favour of someone from a preferred demographic and so on, so change was welcome.”
When you say it wasn't possible to be a jazz musician in South Africa anymore, you mean financially?
“Financially, yes. It's expensive to live there - you have to have a car, and you have to have all the right insurance, and it costs a fortune.
“At least three times, packing up after a concert or something, we turned around and one of the speakers was gone - so you have to have the right insurance. Health insurance is insane there, and you have to have it as well.
“As a jazz musician, I can't imagine being able to earn enough to actually cover those costs. And then you have to have a car - there's no real public transport.”
So Prague is home now?
“Oh yes, for at least four years already.”
You mentioned your husband, John Fresk. Is it true he was nominated for a Grammy?
“Yes. It was for a Christmas jazz album and I really need to find out what it was called because I've been asked this before. I think it was called 'Tall Jazz' or 'Joyous Jazz' or 'Joyful Jazz'.”
Is it also true he worked with Liza Minelli and Bobby McFerrin?
“Not with Liza Minelli, but he worked with Bobby McFerrin. He was his pianist before Bobby hit it big. John was actually asked to come on tour with him after the hit, but he had a young family and it just wasn't practical.”
What are you working on right now - is there anything you'd like to promote?
“I spent a year or two working on a project called Between Berlin and BeBop, which is the music of Irving Berlin.
“It kind of happened organically - you know, one is always hunting for new material, something unusual and something not everyone else is doing. Even though I compose, I just don't compose enough. And every time I stumbled across a new song that really grabbed me, every second song would be by Irving Berlin.
“I started researching the guy, and this little man was just this absolute American dream success story. He composed over 1500 songs and at least 28 musicals, and I thought, 'Man! How much of this stuff is actually in the public domain?' Which is also attractive, because if you record an album of 12 cover versions, you need three months' income to pay for the copyright royalties.
“So Berlin became quite an attractive option, and then I started researching him and reading about him, and there's just so much anecdotal stuff to share and he was so loved by his contemporaries.
“I created this project, Between Berlin and BeBop, John's contemporary arrangements of Irving Berlin's material, which sounds completely different to when he composed it. We have a seven-piece ensemble with a full horn section - trumpet, saxophone, trombone.
“We launched at the Jazz Dock in March - it was very successful so they've invited us back. We'll be back there on 5th July so really looking forward to that.
“And we're hoping for some funding - we've applied and just waiting for the word. And then we have a whole tour planned, so we're hoping that this will all happen. But I manifest - it will go ahead.”
And the tour is global or just Europe?
“It starts in the Czech Republic, and it will be based in towns where there are tertiary jazz institutions because it has to have some kind of educational aspect. And then we're hoping to broaden throughout Europe. We already have a vaguely multinational ensemble so we're hoping to expand on that.”
You mentioned you also compose your own songs. Have you always done that or is it a newer addition to your repertoire?
“Just in the last 15 or 20 years. Well, maybe I have always, but I'm just not that prolific. There's so much good material out there. When I was teaching at university and I was constantly playing and constantly in it, then I was composing quite a lot. But now I have John who's a monstrous jazz pianist so I play seldom, which affects that.”
You also teach singing - is that also something you've always done to supplement your income?
“Yes, that's something I started doing, just teaching contemporary voice and then surprisingly was head-hunted by one of the top jazz institutions in South Africa, in Pretoria, the Tshwane School of Music, and was given some time to catch up academically because I didn't have the academic qualifications to teach. And I just loved it - fell into it and loved it.”
You also occasionally do these very intimate student showcases at your apartment. How did that come about? It's such a nice setting rather than having it at a venue.
“We started off doing house concerts towards the end of lockdown. The jazz clubs weren't quite functioning yet, because tourism wasn't back yet, so there was just no work. John and I had been creating music, and it's all very well jamming together, but you need an audience every now and then.
“So we started doing these house concerts, got permission from our landlord, and those kind of snowballed. We took a break this year, and on 29 July we're about to start our next season. We'll be doing house concert number 15.
“The student showcases came about via the same principle - it started with three students. Last weekend we did it with seven students. And it always turns into a bit of a party at the end.
“I want to showcase what the students can do and they also want the opportunity to perform live before an audience. So it's a useful vehicle for both of us.”
