Zuzana Lapčíková has been known as a virtuoso cimbalom player, original singer and composer. She was born in the region of Moravské Slovácko (South-East Moravia), where she lives with her family. Her family background brought her to Moravian folk song and music. She studied the cimbalom at the Brno conservatory and musicology/ethnography at the Masaryk University in Brno. She won numerous national competitions and played at many international festivals. She performed and recorded with Moravian cimbalom bands, Brno Radio Folklore Instruments Orchestra, various chamber bands and orchestras [Prague Chamber Philharmonics, Virtuosi di Praga, Brno Philharmonics , Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonics Zlín, Moravian Philharmonics Olomouc, Hradec Králové Philharmonics, Tallich Chamber Orchestra]. Her discography includes over 35 titles.
For seventeen years she was the leader of the folklore music and dance company Včelaran in Bílovice near Uherské Hradiště, with which she was awarded the „International Folklore Festival Laureate Award“ [1991, 1996] twice and made several TV shows and CDs. She devoted herself to folk dance, choreography and its staging in theatre. She worked with numerous outstanding personalities, including Emil Viklický, Miloš Štědroň, Jiří Pavlica, George Mráz, Ida Kelarová, and Josef Fečo. Since 1992, she has been a founding member of Ad Lib Moravia trio, an open association of musicians around the jazz pianist and composer Emil Viklický, for which she chooses repertoire, arranges, plays and sings. In 2000 she accepted the invitation of George Mráz to record the CD „Morava“ in the N.Y.C. [with Billy Hart and E. Viklický]. The recording was received enthusiastically in the jazz world, placing fifth worldwide in the prestigious Jazztitude ranking of top ten jazz albums of 2001. In 2002, she played at the Prague Spring Festival as a guest of George Mráz, with the prominent members of the George Mráz Quartet [Richie Beirach, Rich Perry and Lewis Nash]. In 2000, she met Josef Fečo in the jazz circles and they struck up an intensive musical collaboration. Her collaboration with the violinist Petr Růžička, who currently works in Paris, dates back to her conservatory studies. They collaborated on several musical and theater projects.
For her openness to varied musical stimuli, Zuzana Lapčíková transgressed the borders of folklore genre and entered the field of art music [baroque, contemporary - from chamber settings to large orchestras] and cross-genre connections [jazz, contemporary music]. In 2002, she was approached by Městské divadlo Zlín to compose music for the play „Valašské remazúry“. In 2005, she prepared a new version of the unique outlaw opera in the world-music style entitled “Ej, hora…”, for the Municipal Theatre in Brno, which she later presented in the Kennedy center in Washington. For the international musical festival Moravský podzim she prepared an independent concert show based on Moravian folk music entitled „Vox populi“.
In 2005 she was approached by the National Theater in Brno to create a music-dance ballet show, together with the ballet soloist and choreographer Hana Litterová. Zuzana provided the theme, wrote the music and co-authored the script. The show „Ballads“ was named the ballet performance of the year by renowned critics, she was nominated to Alfréd Radok award 2006 and she was awarded the prestigious Original Performance Award at the Contemporary Dance Competition 2008.
Another milestone in her musical career took place in 2007 when she founded the „Zuzana Lapčíková Kvintet“.
Her latest work is the oratory Orbis pictus based on the texts of Comenius, premiered at the International Musical Festival Smetanova Litomyšl 2009.
For 18 years (interrupted by maternal obligations) she has been teaching children and adults to play the cimbalom, providing skilled cimbalom players for the regional musical scene. In 2007, she co-founded Slovácká Elementary Musical School in Uherské Hradiště, where she currently teaches the cimbalom.