The ongoing Bard SummerScape festival, held for the 15th time at the Bard College campus some 180 km north of New York, focuses this time primarily on the work of Fréderic Chopin. That is why the choice of the opera to be produced this year fell on a Poland-themed work, the seldom performed Dimitrij by Antonín Dvořák. The author of the … Read more
At the fifth of eight concerts of Podkrkonošské hudební léto festival, world premiere was given to Mosaics, a piece for violin, clarinet and piano by composer Kateřina Horká (*1993). A young student of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague wrote it in autumn 2016, encouraged by the festival’s directress, violinist Ludmila Pavlová. The 15-minute-long piece in 3 movements was … Read more
The second of the ten concerts held by the Treasures of the Broumov region festival (12th year, Jul 1 – Sep 2) was dedicated to pieces deposited in the musical archive of the Broumov monastery. They were performed by Musica Braunensis ensemble which was established with the objective to play specifically this, often unknown or long-forgotten … Read more
The 59th year of the Smetana’s Litomyšl music festival (Jun 16 – Jul 6) thought about its youngest spectators, too. It was for them that the festival staged a children opera performance Rusalenka by a well-known singer, pedagogue, and directress of the Prague children’s opera Jiřina Marková-Krystlíková (*1957). Commissioned by the festival, the work is based on Dvořák’s most famous opera. The … Read more
Petr Wajsar (*1978) is a highly popular author at the Prague Spring festival. This year only, the festival gave world premiere to two of his compositions – besides Harpsycho, the compulsory piece for the 2nd round of the cembalo competition, it was The Rest Is Song, performed on June 1 at The Trade Fair Palace by … Read more
As already a couple of times in the past, this year of the Prague Spring festival, too, decided to hold one of its concerts at the National Technical Museum. In collaboration with the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Czech Technical University in Prague, it presented a programme consisting of four pieces by contemporary composers, all of … Read more
A new orchestral composition by Miroslav Srnka received its premiere on 2nd April during the 34th year of Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo music festival which is taking place between 17th March and 8th April 2017. Srnka is no newcomer to the festival; his music was played here already in 2011 and 2014. Written on … Read more
One of the ensembles performing at the 45th year of the prestigious international Hong Kong Arts festival (Feb 16 – Mar 18) was the ensemble of the National Theatre Brno. HK Cultural Centre’s Concert Hall, which can host nearly 1,600 visitors, saw them perform four times altogether – twice it was Janáček’s opera The Makropulos Case, then his Sinfonietta, Eternal … Read more
Three concerts took place during the fourth week of the Days of Contemporary Music festival. All of them were held at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague with fifteen of the twenty pieces presented enjoying their world premiere. The program on November 21 consisted exclusively of chamber music. Pallets and Shading by Jiří Bezděk … Read more
One of the goals the Contempuls festival has been working towards is to support Czech composers and to give them the opportunity to present themselves in an international context. At this year’s last two concerts, premiere was given to three pieces by Czech authors of the young generation – Jakub Rataj, Jan Ryant Dřízal and Jiří Kadeřábek. … Read more
