The improvisation on the CD A Day ín Benedict were recorded at the beginning of October 1997 in two chapels in the Plasy Monastery and it started as a personal encounter earlier in 1996. Rajesh Mehta’s "Ragas for trumpet" and improvisations with Vojtěch and Irena Havel. recorded over the course of one day, are the destillations  of three years of the trumpetist musical experiments within the saint Benedict chapel. The music pieces were created specifically to the the chapel´s acoustic qualities into full play.

The meditation chapel, planned to the main space of a never. realized church was dedicated t the founder if te Benedictine Order. It is an oval space disigned in the Baroque style around 1711 by the concent’s architect Jan Blažej Santini Aichel. The work on ib the chapel and the entire convent were eventually completed under the supervision of Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer in 1739. The chape rises to the height of 25 meters and is 12 wide. Its shape and acoustics were designed to amplify liturgical singing and spoken word. Within the chapel the shisper of each tone echoes over and over as the sound winds up the elliptical cylinder of the cupola and disapperars in the height of its upper part. The St. Bernard Chapel is smaller of the two, located at the corner of the convent, bas a brifer tonal echo and clearer acoustics. This is where the CD´s impro with a prepared piano was performed.

Mehta uses three types of trumpets and extends their timbres and renges with added elements (mutes. paper, water, tubes, other objects). 

Recorded by: Avik Studio, Plzeň
mastering: Jiří Sláma a Přemek Haas
photographs: Daniel Šperl, Gert de Ruijter, Radovan Kodera, Hana Rysová
text: Miloš Vojtěchovský
english editing: Jo Williams
Lay out: Hedvika Moravcová
prepress: Gekko 96
Print: Kartex
AV 011797
podpora: Pro Helvetia a Velvyslanectví Nizozemského království

A Day in Benedict - CD

Location: Plasy Monastery
Photographer: Daniel Šperl, Gert de Ruijter, Radovan Kodera