Ing. Oldřich Lomecký
The Mayor of Prague 1

Daniel Pearl
(*10. 10. 1963 - †21. 02. 2002)

The world has come to know Daniel Pearl as the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002, just four months after 9/11. People around the world, along with his pregnant wife and family, prayed for his release. Since then, he has been remembered as a symbol of hope: a man who built bridges between diverse cultures as a writer and a gifted musician.
  Danny was born on October 10, 1963, in Princeton, New Jersey, and grew up in Los Angeles, where he displayed an insatiable curiosity for music, academics and sports. A gifted writer from a very young age, Danny's aptitude for journalism became apparent as a student at Stanford University where he co-founded the student newspaper Stanford Commentary. He graduated in 1985 with Phi Beta Kappa honors and then spent a summer as a Pulliam Fellow intern at the Indianapolis Star before joining the North Adams Transcript and the Berkshire Eagle. After a few years, he moved on to the San Francisco Business Times and within few weeks he joined the Wall Street Journal in 1990. Danny started in the Journal's Atlanta bureau and moved successively to the Washington and London bureaus, serving as a Middle East correspondent. After he met Mariane in 1998, he moved to Paris where they were married a year later.
  In October of 2000, they moved to Bombay, where Danny became the South Asia Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal. Danny's skill as a foreign correspondent was apparent not only in his entertaining Page One "A-hed" pieces which shed light on other cultures, but also in investigative stories that uncovered the truth from the rubble of war and devastation. It was Danny who uncovered that the U.S. had mistakenly bombed a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant, believing it to be a weapons factory. Later, he broke the story of Al Qaeda's money laundering through the Tanzanite gem market. It was from Bombay that Danny covered the "war on terrorism," occasionally venturing into Pakistan. He was retracing the steps of "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and hoped to meet with Sheik Gilani, a spiritual leader, when he was abducted in Karachi on January 23, 2002. For weeks, millions around the world -- from heads of state, to religious leaders and ordinary people -- rallied for Danny's release. In Danny, the terrorists believed they abducted a media figure, an American, and a Jew. But they had much more -- a true citizen of the world and an embodiment of civilized values, whose death, like his life, would inspire millions of people in the cause of decency and cultural understanding. Several weeks elapsed without word of his fate; his murder was confirmed on February 21, 2002. Four of the kidnappers were convicted on July 15, 2002, including mastermind Omar Saeed Sheik, although others believed to be involved are still at large.
  Two days before his abduction, Danny learned that his wife Mariane was expecting a baby boy; he chose the name Adam for their son. In May, just three months after his murder, Mariane Pearl gave birth to Adam. Following his murder, Danny's family and friends established the Daniel Pearl Foundation to carry on his legacy, using music and words to address the root causes of the hatred that took his life. Like previous such projects (e.g. eSACHERe", "MAKANNA", "Duo Brikcius - 2 Cellos Tour", "Weinberger Tour", "Festival Brikcius", ...), "Festival Brikcius" forms part of the Daniel Pearl World Music Days, which commemorate the legacy of Jewish journalist, musician Daniel Pearl, brutally murdered by group of terrorists for defending freedom of speech. For more details visit websites http://www.Brikcius.com , http://www.DanielPearlMusicDays.org a  http://En.Wikipedia.org/Wiki/Daniel_Pearl .

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Year of Czech Music 2014

  The artistic patrons of the Year of Czech Music 2014 are the mezzo soprano Magdalena Kožená and the chief conductor Sir Simon Rattle. Visit website  http://www.RokCeskeHudby.cz .