Jan Schulmeister Matinée

In 2026 pianist Jan Schulmeister celebrates his twentieth birthday yet, despite his young age, he has already won awards from more than thirty competitions, among them the César Franck International Piano Competition in Brussels, the Manhattan International Competition in New York and the Concertino Praga International Radio Competition. His biggest success to date is the third prize awarded to him at the Van Cliburn International Junior Piano Competition in Dallas, USA, the junior offshoot of its famous namesake. For his debut at the Prague Spring this talented artist has chosen a programme which he, himself, describes as “a journey across various epochs”. Works will include one of the most famous “encores” of all time – Prelude in C sharp minor by Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943) from the cycle Morceaux de fantaisie or the powerful Sonata 1. X. 1905 by Leoš Janáček (1854–1928), which was written in response to a real-life incident – the tragic death of joiner’s apprentice František Pavlík during the unrest in Brno in 1905. The programme will culminate in a brilliant transcription of Bach’s violin Chaccone from Partita in D minor, with which its author – the Italian-German piano virtuoso Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924) – dazzled his concert audiences at the turn of the 20th century.

Jan Schulmeister is a member of what is now the sixth generation of musicians. The founder of this family musical tradition was his great-great-grandfather, trumpeter František Černý, a pupil of Antonín Liehmann and schoolmate of Antonín Dvořák in Zlonice. “As a bandmaster he went off to earn a living in St Petersburg, he left his wife and three children behind, and he never returned home. But we all like to boast that he was a classmate of Antonín Dvořák at the school in Zlonice!” Jan told us with a smile in one of his interviews. If you are wondering whether he is related to the second violinist in the Wihan Quartet, you’d be absolutely right: These namesakes are father and son.

The gifted pianist’s first victory in competition occurred in Milan when he was just seven years old. This was followed by competition successes in the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Austria, Estonia, Belgium and the USA, which in turn led to collaboration with leading Czech orchestras and conductors, among them the Brno Philharmonic under Dennis Russell Davies, the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra with Tomáš Netopil and the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra under Jiří Rožeň. In January 2026 Jan Schulmeister will make his debut with the Moravian Philharmonic Olomouc in Vienna’s Musikverein. In addition to these achievements, he already has four solo albums to his name. “My Prague Spring programme will take us on a journey across different eras,” he says. “Each of these pieces evokes strong emotions in me – from the spiritual depth and serenity of Bach’s Toccata and the inner restlessness and lyricism of Rachmaninov, to the pain and urgency of Janáček’s Sonata. The final work, Bach’s Chaconne in a transcription by Ferruccio Busoni, blends profound spirituality with Romantic monumentality. I chose these pieces with the aim of creating a contrasting but internally cohesive programme, which would offer listeners both a profound musical encounter and also an emotional experience,” he adds. “Just seeing the young pianist step up onto the stage told us that this concert was going to be something truly special. He radiated strength, determination and joy, all of which accompanied him throughout his performance,” wrote a music critic on the KlasikaPlus website in a review of one of Jan’s concerts. After Jan Čmejla’s debut in 2025 the Prague Spring thus brings you a recital by another exceptional talent on the young Czech music scene, a concert you really won’t want to miss.