(9 Jul 2017) LEADIN:
A Czech music ensemble made up entirely of musicians with disabilities is fast becoming a global success.
The Tap Tap Orchestra has already played London, Madrid, Moscow and Jerusalem and is now heading to the U.S to play New York, Washington and Chicago.
STORYLINE:
What was created some 18 years ago in an effort to give kids some extracurricular activity at a renowned school for the disabled in Prague has become a major music act that has drawn millions of listeners and fans, first at home and gradually abroad.
That The Tap Tap orchestra has many musicians in wheelchairs with various serious disabilities can't be recognised from the professional, typically rhythmical sound.
That's been achieved through years of hard work and overlooking disability and instead concentrating on professionalism by the Tap Tap's band leader Simon Ornest.
"My goal from the very start was not to do it as a therapy but as a band with everything that that involves, including rules. And from that we developed our two essential rules, which are the most important for us and our band is still based on them. And those are; we come on time and we do what we promised amongst ourselves to do," he says.
Ornest says in his view, some disabled people are unchallenged by their loved ones who don't always set high standards for them. Ornest doesn't coddle his band mates, at practices he won't hesitate to sternly chastise someone for holding a microphone the wrong way, being off key or off beat.
"Unfortunately, people are too tolerant to and don't demand anything from people with disabilities, from my point of view there is a bit too much tolerance (lack of challenge) and it begins quite logically but also paradoxically in the family. People around 18 to 20 are confronted in our band for the first time with a situation where we really want something from them and we insist on it," he says.
At the beginning, they started with cover versions of their favourite songs, today they produce music of their own with cooperation and help from some local leading musicians.
Their lyrics target the world of the disabled. Their major hit, the Bus Director, is a song about a bus driver who prevents a disabled man from boarding the bus with his bicycle. The song has more than 6.9 million views on YouTube and the number is growing every day. By comparison, the Czech Republic is a country of 10 million.
"At the beginning, people were more curious about what we are, what the disabled can perform and then there was pity and wonder. Now we have fans as any other band. They like our music and they don't consider us a band of disabled kids but as a real band," says Jana Augustinova, one of the Tap Tap's singers.
Ladislav Angelovic, the band's master of ceremonies, says he's stunned by their success.
"We started as an extracurricular activity and it got out of our hands a bit. In fact we are a professional ensemble now."
Today, the 20-member ensemble plays about 60 concerts a year, performs a musical on one of the stages of the National Theatre in Prague, and despite all the difficulties on the road, it has played a number of European capitals and cities elsewhere in the world.
For this year, it is planning to present its show in New York City, Washington D.C. and Chicago.

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