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Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, in E minor, “From the New World”, is among the most widely beloved and performed pieces of classical music today. It premiered in December 1893, less than a year after the famous Czech composer became head of the National Conservatory of Music in New York. Many hoped he would help develop a distinctly American style of classical music. While Antonín Dvořák did not embrace that role, he thrust himself into the debate by proclaiming, “the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called Negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States.”

A new document has been discovered in the archives of the National Library in Prague’s Klementinum which contains fragments of six two-voice musical compositions from the 13th century. They are believed to have been originally composed by the Notre Damme School in Paris. To find out more, I spoke to Jan Vojtíšek, the head of the Department of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books at the National Library. He began by telling me how the texts were found.

The year 1956 saw the premiere of Invention for Destruction, a fantasy adventure by Czech director Karel Zeman, loosely inspired by Jules Verne’s novel of the same name. The film became a global success, selling to more than 70 countries, and made its creator, as well as Czechoslovak cinematography, famous throughout the world.

As the Czech Republic struggles to deal with one of the highest rates of Covid infections and deaths per capita in the world, EU member states have come to its assistance, offering to take over patients from the overburdened Czech health care system and agreeing to send the country an additional 100,000 vaccines to boost the inoculation drive, which is a key factor in bringing the epidemic under control.

The contact lens – a tiny, soft, see-through thing, weighing next to nothing, yet it makes a huge difference in our lives. Hundreds of millions of people around the world wear contacts every day, but they may not be aware that the invention of the modern soft contact lens came from this country.

New data from the Ministry of Education shows that while there were fewer Erasmus students in the Czech Republic last year, the number of foreign students studying full-time degrees grew by more than 8 percent. I asked Jakub Tesař, the head of the Higher Education and Lifelong Learning Division at the Czech National Agency for International Education and Research, what is behind this rise in the middle of a pandemic.

The 28th edition of the main national film awards, the Czech Lions, takes place in Prague on Saturday night, which Charlatan, Shadow Country and Havel among the main contenders. But what is the favourite to win? I discussed the 2021 Czech Lion Awards with Czech Radio film journalist Kristina Roháčová.

A team of scientists has reconstructed in glorious detail the faces of two sons of Saint Ludmila who left an indelible mark on Czech history: Spytihněv I, founder of Prague Castle, and Vratislav I, father of “good king Wenceslas”. Using state-of-the-art technology, the team have even determined the eye and hair colour of the two dukes from the Přemyslid dynasty, more than a thousand years after their deaths.

With the coronavirus epidemic threatening to spiral out of control, the Czech government on Monday ordered blanket testing of employees in companies around the country. The decision has seen thousands of firms scrambling to secure tests for over two million people.

Cliona Manahan, Ireland’s ambassador to the Czech Republic, says that her approach to the post is based on reaching out and making connections – and that she see her embassy in Prague’s Malá Strana as a kind of informal “Ireland House”. But how does Manahan manage to keep in touch with the Irish community in this country, local representatives and other diplomats at a time when face-to-face meetings are almost completely ruled out?  We discussed that question, and much more, ahead of St. Patrick’s Day on March 17.