About Zuzana Navarová

Zuzana Navarová de Tejada (born 18 June 1959 in Hradec Králové, died 7 December 2004 in Prague) was a Czech singer, composer, and songwriter. After studying Spanish and Czech, she worked as a Spanish teacher at a language school. Towards the end of the 80's, she was simultaneously performing and studying pop singing at a conservatory. In 1980, she began singing with the group Nerez. At this time, she was already being acknowledged as an exceptional soloist. Her first solo album was created in 1992. At the end of 1994, she began working together with the Columbian folksinger, Iván Gutiérrez. The next year, using Iván's older songs, she recorded an album with the band Tres. 5 more albums were later created with the group Koa. She was a producer and discovered the singer Radůza. At first she didn't have much favor from radio stations, which played her songs only rarely. This changed in 2004, when Navarová with the group Koa broke through onto mainstream radio stations with the song Marie (Maria) from the album Jako Šantiděví. During this time she only had a few months left of her life. She died at the age of 45 due to cancer. Her song texts are very interesting. She managed to avoid the characteristic folk and country clichés and infuse the text with a curious poetic sense. She thus placed herself among the few Czech songwriters whose lyrics can be considered as poetry.