Markéta Zdeňková & Ariel Rodríguez

Singer, guitarist, composer and lyricist Markéta Zdeňková, known from her solo project MarZ, collaborates with Argentine pianist and composer Ariel Rodríguez. Their duo fuses Latin American music with jazz, classical music and distinctive singer-songwriter traditions. The concert takes place on 16 October 2026 in the hall of Prague's Chodovská tvrz.

It all began in Lisbon, where European cultural traditions have long met Latin American and African influences. Since 2025, Markéta Zdeňková regularly performs on the Lisbon scene while developing her Czech projects in parallel. In Lisbon she participates in the international music project Ressoa - ECOS DO MUNDO, supported by the Gulbenkian Foundation, with which she performed at the MMF festival in Sines. Argentine composer and pianist Ariel Rodríguez has been active in Lisbon since 2017, moving between Latin American styles, jazz and contemporary music.

Latin, jazz and classical music have been close to Markéta Zdeňková since childhood - she studied both classical and jazz guitar. Latin American rhythms first drew her through admiration for Zuzana Navarová's songs; a trip to Brazil cemented a lifelong passion. These inspirations, along with domestic folk influences, she has transformed into distinctive songwriting that meets Rodríguez's musical foundations. The duo's repertoire thus combines Zdeňková's original songs - written in Czech, English and newly in Portuguese - with Rodríguez's often spiritually-oriented compositions in Spanish.

During the evening, cover versions of Czech and Argentine compositions will also be heard. It is not merely a programme variation: in the borrowed pieces, both musicians find contact with their own roots when far from home.

Markéta Zdeňková has been writing and performing songs since age 13, studying jazz vocals at the Jaroslav Ježek School of Music. Under the MarZ project banner, she released albums Na rozcestí (2017), MarZ (2020) and #silnouzenou (2024). She has presented her songs in orchestral arrangements by composers Petr Wajsar and others.