Mixed vocal ensemble VAGANTES (former Vaganti) was established during 80. in Prague, consists of some 8-10 singers. It is specialize in early music, especially in that of the 16th and 17th centuries, both sacred and secular. We sing both with an accompaniment and a capella. O.Lasso, G.P. da Palestrina, C. Monteverdi, T. L. da Victoria, G.Carissimi, Jacob Handl Gallus, William Byrd, Adam Michna z Otradovic (early Czech Baroque period) and other composers belong to our favourite authors. Our first international performance took place in Settignano near Florence where we gave a concert during the Summer School of Early Music, organized by the prestigious British ensemble Pro Cantione Antiqua and by the Florentine choir L’Homme Armé in 1989. In 1990 we were invited by organizers of a festival in Chichester, England, to give some concerts there, as well as during our tour of England (e.g., in the Medieval Hall in Salisbury and in the Westminster Abbey). In 1991, the organizers of the Gallusian festival in Klagenfurt, Austria, invited us to sing at the final concert, devoted to the 400th anniversary of Gallus’s death. In the same year, our record won the first prize in an international competition „Musica Noster Amor“ invited by Radio Ljubljana, Slovenia, and devoted also to Gallus’s anniversary. In 1992 we went to Milan as guests of the choir Amici Cantores; we gave two concerts in Milano and one in Brescia. The next year, we visited Milan again, this time to perform concerts ordered by the Town Hall of Milan as a part of the traditional cycle „Musica e poesia a San Maurizio“.

In 1993, a joint project was realized with Mr. Dirkjan Horringa from Utrecht as a guest conductor at the occasion of the 350th anniversary of the Monteverdi’s death: the result was a large programme composed of sacred and secular Monteverdi’s pieces, and performed seven times in Prague and other Bohemian towns. Later, in 1995, Mr. Horringa invited us again to join his project on Monteverdi’s Vespers, together with his own choir Trajecti Voces; combined choirs gave several concerts both in the Czech Republic and in the Netherlands (one of them was broadcasted by the Dutch Radio). Vagantes’s recordings done for the Czech Radio were broadcasted several times. Two MC records were marketed in the Czech republic and one CD record, other is under preparation.

Present members: Helena Kohlová, Veronika Konvalinková, Martina Mrvová, Zuzana Zadrobílková, Bára Vlková, Antonín Hlaváček, Martin Konvalinka, Jaroslav Beran, Jiří Podešva