Milli Janatková

Milli Janatková’ s creative work takes in vocal, guitar, percussion, looping, painting, graphics and dressmaking. Based in the Czech Republic, Europe, she has been travelling around the world - Europe, USA, India. She studied abroad at the Departments of Music and Theatre at the University of Évora, Portugal in 2008, and vocal master classes with Aga Zaryan and Joana Machado. She has been performing since 2006 and working on her original music since 2011.

Her solo debut Transformation (2013) has been honored with four nominations for The Independent Music Awards 2014, USA. Milli´s music has been honored with other four nominations for the IMAs 2016, USA. 

Since 2012 Milli has adapted her songs for jazz arrangement as a variable band – Milli Janatková Duo or Trio or Quartet or Quintet with experienced musicians: pianist Marek Novotný, double- bassist Petr Tichý (Hlas Kontra Bas), drummer Tomáš Vokurka and Dutch saxophone player Cyrille Oswald. 

Since 2015 Milli has been working on her multimedia project To My Roots. The new album To My Roots was released in 2017 and it has been successfully accepted both by the publicists and public. It has been honored with the nomination for the Classic Prague Awards in the Crossover category and the song Mother´s Magic has won The VOX POPULI AWARD - The 16th Independent Music Awards, USA in A Capella category. The project has been supported by public crowdfunding, Milli´s native town Mělník and The State Fund of Culture, Ministry of Culture, Czech Republic. The goal is the inspiration to renew people´s trust, hope, respect, and support the maturation process we all experience.

Milli has been devoting her time to arts and crafts since childhood – painting, drawing, sewing, and later graphics. She has been presenting her artwork at solo and group exhibitions since 2003. Her visual creative work is very rich, and is based mostly on natural motifs and architecture. 

She has received a Master´s from the University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic, Visual Arts Department. In 2008 she received a scholarship at the University of Évora, Portugal where she worked on the paintings of local landscapes as well as on her personal drawing diaries and graphics. 

She was invited to attend the International Graphics Symposium LINO 2008 at the Gallery of Klatovy / Klenová, Czech Republic. Her printmaking has been honored with three Honorable Mentions (Graphic Art of the Year, Prague, and International Rokycany Biennial of Graphics). 

Recently she has focused on water color painting, indian ink drawing and oil painting. Since 2014 she has been working on a new graphics set from the multimedia project Quiet, Please! with the motif of human body organs. The project opens the topic of psychosomatic problems and inspires to renew people´s balance with respect to our body and psyché. Milli has focused on another multimedia project To My Roots, and her paintings and drawings are from her ancestors´ villages where she travels to. She has also been creating original handmade dresses from her paintings for this project.