Pavel Trojan – Prague Spring

Pavel Trojan appointed new Director of the Prague Spring festival

Pavel Trojan — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 09:47:56 +0000

At a meeting held on 20 June 2022 the Board of Directors of the Prague Spring International Music Festival appointed Pavel Trojan as the festival’s new Director; he will assume this post on 1 August 2022, thus continuing the work of Roman Bělor, who held this position for many years. “After twenty-one years at the helm of the Prague Spring, I am leaving at my own request,” Bělor states. “The time has come for me to hand over the direction of the festival to Pavel Trojan, whom I brought to the festival team twelve years ago. With his abilities, educational background and experience, he convinced both me and the Board that he was the right person to guarantee the continuity and further prosperity of the festival,” he stressed.

In this connection the Board accepted the following resolution: “The Board of Directors of the public benefit corporation Prague Spring would like to thank Director Roman Bělor for his many years’ service and for his successful work as head of the festival.” On this occasion the Board also elected Roman Bělor as one of its members and expressed the conviction that he will continue to play a role in the management of the corporation in his position on the Board.

Pavel Trojan graduated in composition and conducting from the Prague Conservatoire, and he studied music management and composition at Prague’s Academy of Performing Arts. He has been working for the Prague Spring since 2010, where he progressively assumed posts in marketing and PR, he was also appointed press spokesperson and he was named Deputy Director in 2019.

“I thank you for the trust placed in me and I would like to thank Director Roman Bělor for everything that I was able to learn from him,” says the newly appointed Director, Pavel Trojan. “I regard the Prague Spring as an international festival of world distinction which, in ideal proportions, combines tradition with the spirit of discovery. I will do my utmost to ensure that, under my direction, the Prague Spring develops with a sense of responsibility towards its renown and history, at the same time, however, with an energetic and modern approach. Given the turbulent economic and geopolitical situation, future editions of the festival will certainly present various challenges yet, even in such times as these, it must continue to uphold exceptional endeavour, and foster uplifting and rewarding artistic experiences,” Trojan concludes.

Thomas Guggeis will stand in for Daniel Barenboim

Pavel Trojan — Wed, 04 May 2022 15:18:39 +0000

The legendary conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim will be unable to open this year’s Prague Spring for health reasons. At Barenboim’s behest, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra will instead be conducted by 28-year-old Thomas Guggeis for the performance of the festival’s signature composition, My Country by Bedřich Smetana.

“Withdrawing from this tour is painful,” said Daniel Barenboim, who had to be hospitalised with vasculitis. “My work with the WEDO is very special to me and I was greatly looking forward to performing Smetana’s Má vlast with them. However, at this time, I must prioritize my health and I am grateful that Thomas Guggeis has agreed to take over the tour. ‘Má vlast’ is a very poignant piece for the WEDO to be taking to European capitals, especially at this time. ‘Má vlast’ means ‘my homeland’ and it is very significant and symbolic that our orchestra, which still does not have a homeland, will be performing this piece in Prague,” noted Barenboim with regard to the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, in which young Israeli and Arab musicians play side by side. The orchestra appears regularly at the major festivals in Salzburg and Lucerne and at London’s BBC Proms. It has also played before Pope Benedict XIV and at the UN headquarters.Thomas Guggeis will be standing in for Barenboim for the course of the whole tour of European metropolises. My Country will be performed in Paris, Milan, Munich, Brussels, and Luxembourg, culminating in the opening concert for the Prague Spring.

“We wish Mr Barenboim a speedy recovery. He will be sorely missed at this year’s Prague Spring. However, we have full confidence in Barenboim’s choice and we share the hopes that he sets on the young Thomas Guggeis. We look forward to his interpretation of My Country with much interest. Incidentally, Jakub Hrůša was also 28 years old when he opened the Prague Spring in 2010,” responded the festival director Roman Bělor.

The conductor Thomas Guggeis, who served as Daniel Barenboim’s assistant for many years, came into the limelight in March 2018, when he took over the reins of the Berlin State Opera’s acclaimed production of Strauss’s Salome after Christoph von Dohnány. Since the 2021/2022 season, he has held the post of “Staatskapellmeister” at the famed venue, and he has conducted a number of operas there – Verdi’s Falstaff, Wagner’s Lohengrin, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, or Janáček’ Jenůfa. He followed this up with a debut at the Vienna State Opera (Strauss’s Salome and Korngold’s The Dead City). The upcoming season of 2022/2023 will see him debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; he is also slated to serve as music director of the Frankfurt Opera. His symphonic experience includes performances with Orchestre de Paris, Staatskapelle Dresden, or the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Prague Spring Competition for the First Time in the Category of Viola

Pavel Trojan — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 11:53:48 +0000

The 2023 Prague Spring International Music Competition will be exceptional in many respects – for the first time in its history, the competition will be held in the category of viola; the second category will be trombone, returning to the competition after twelve years. The 74^th edition of the Prague Spring International Music Competition will take place from 6 to 14 May 2023 in Prague. “We have published the competition conditions well in advance with regard to the newly added category. We wanted to give the candidates enough time to prepare for the competition. Registration for the competition will open at the beginning of September 2022,” says Michal Vencl, the Competition Secretary. The complete competition conditions, repertoire, and the competition schedule can be found on our website festival.cz/en/competition/.

“The viola rightly deserves increasing attention as an instrument that is indispensable in orchestras, chamber ensembles and solo performances. We are thrilled that we have been able to invite the world’s best to the international jury and we expect a high level of interest from the performers,” says cellist Michal Kaňka, chairman of the Standing Competition Committee. The jury of the viola competition will be composed of the best in the field: Tabea Zimmermann, Kristina Fialová, Garth Knox, Pavel Nikl, Cynthia Phelps and Lars Anders Tomter. The jury will be chaired by French violist Antoine Tamestit. “We have managed to assemble a jury of exceptional personalities from all over the world and the competition programme will be a real challenge for young violists,” announces Tamestit, the jury chairman. “The competitors will have to demonstrate their skills in a wide repertoire spreading over 300 years of music, from solo to Sonata with piano, to Concerto with Orchestra. We have chosen the most challenging and most beautiful and profound Masterpieces ever written for the viola. Every decision of repertoire or jury, as well as all the precise rules and regulations have been taken in a democratic and artistic approach and aimed at obtaining fair and artistic and high-level performances in the context of one of the world’s most interesting and beautiful festivals, the Prague Spring,” says Tamestit.

“We are extremely pleased that the trombone is returning to the competition categories at such a prestigious competition as the Prague Spring Competition,” says Robert Kozánek, leader of the Czech Philharmonic’s trombone section. “This is evidenced by the numerous inquiries from fellow teachers from abroad who have repeatedly approached me for several years asking when the famous trombone competition will finally take place in Prague. Prague undoubtedly belongs on the imaginary map of important trombone centres, and therefore the organisation of such a meeting of students, teachers and leading performers in our field is an important and necessary step,” emphasises Kozánek.

Musicians interested in participating in the competition will be able to register from September 2022, when the online application will open.

The application deadline will be 1 December 2022.

Obligatory Composition Commissioned by Prague Spring

For the upcoming competition Prague Spring has also commissioned a new composition for each category. Ondřej Štochl will compose a solo viola piece. The trombone piece with piano will be composed by Jan Kučera. These compositions will be sent to the competitors admitted to the competition three months before the competition and will be performed in a world premiere during the second rounds, i.e. on 10 May 2023 in the viola category and on 11 May 2023 in the trombone category. There is also a prize from the Czech Music Fund Foundation (Nadace Český hudební fond) for the best interpretation of these works.

The results of the pre-selection round will be published on our website no later than 20 January 2023.

Renowned Artists on Juries

Renowned soloists, teachers and orchestral players have promised to participate in the juries.

The viola jury will be chaired by Antoine Tamestit (France), artistic director of the Viola Space Festival and founding member of Trio Zimmermann. Other distinguished soloists will be members of the jury: Kristina Fialová (Czech Republic) – teacher at the Prague Conservatory, Garth Knox (Ireland) – teacher at the Royal Academy of Music in London, Pavel Nikl (Czech Republic) – one of the founding members of the Pavel Haas Quartet and teacher at the P. Vejvanovský Conservatory in Kroměříž, Cynthia Phelps (USA) – soloist of the New York Philharmonic and teacher at the Juilliard School in New York, Lars Anders Tomter (Norway) – teacher at the State Academy in Oslo and the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and Tabea Zimmermann (Germany) – teacher at the Hochschule für Musik ‘Hanns Eisler’ in Berlin.

The trombone jury will be led by Zdzisław Stolarczyk (Poland), member of the International Trombone Association and teacher at the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw. He will be joined on the jury by other leading soloists: Zoltán Kiss (Hungary) – member of Mnozil Brass and international soloist, Robert Kozánek (Czech Republic) – leader of the Czech Philharmonic trombone section and teacher at the Janáček Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Brno, Fabrice Milischer (France) – teacher at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris, Lukáš Moťka (Czech Republic) – solo trombonist of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and teacher at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, Oliver Seifert (Germany) – solo trombonist of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony (hr-Sinfonieorchester) and teacher at the National University of Music and Representing Art in Frankfurt, and Jeremy Wilson (USA) – teacher at the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music.

Prague Spring 2022 – programme announced

Pavel Trojan — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 14:45:41 +0000

The 77^th Annual Prague Spring Festival

The programme has been announced for the 77^th annual Prague Spring International Music Festival. From 12 May until 3 June, there will be nearly forty concerts. Framing the festival will be appearances by two great conductors. Daniel Barenboim, one of the most acclaimed artists of our time, is returning to the Prague Spring to open the festival with a performance of Smetana’s Má vlast, this time with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. At the festival’s final concert, Andris Nelsons will lead the Vienna Philharmonic in a programme including Dvořák’s Sixth Symphony.

Among the other foreign orchestras that audiences can look forward to hearing is the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with its chief conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.

François-Xavier Roth, a star conductor on stages around the world, will be appearing in the Czech Republic for the very first time and with both of his orchestras—the French period instrument orchestra Les Siècles and Germany’s Gürzenich-Orchester of Cologne.

The cellist Gautier Capuçon will be the festival’s artist-in-residence.

A project of international scope called Prague Offspring will be devoted to new works by contemporary composers. Ticket sales begin on 11 November at 11 a.m. online at festival.cz.

Ticket reimbursement – update

Pavel Trojan — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 12:08:00 +0000

We will automatically refund you in full for the cost of the tickets of the concert which has been canceled; the amount will be sent to the account from which the purchase was made.

The refund process began on June 4, 2021.

We apologize, but by June 30, 2021, as originally announced, we were unable to satisfy all claims. We believe that all tickets for canceled concerts should be refunded by July 8, 2021. Thank you for your understanding.

The just completed 76th annual

Pavel Trojan — Fri, 04 Jun 2021 08:05:58 +0000

The just completed 76^th annual Prague Spring International Music Festival presented more than twenty concerts, and viewers all around the world watched the on-line live broadcasts. As of today, the concerts have received a total of half a million views. Recordings of the concerts will remain available free of charge on the Prague Spring Festival website for a period of one year. Six of the concerts were given before a live audience. “I regard this year’s Prague Spring Festival as being unique in a worldwide context. There is probably no comparable festival that has offered such a generously conceived programme under the given situation,” says festival director Roman Bělor. “By their live broadcasting, these concerts were sent out into the virtual world, but that is just the beginning of their journey—they will continue to resonate online and will bear witness to how something wonderful was successfully realised in Prague during those three weeks when the world was still convulsed by the pandemic,” stated the festival director Roman Bělor emphatically, concluding: “I also think it is important that even under these difficult conditions, the festival’s international dimension was preserved.”

“This year’s Prague Spring, in spite of, or perhaps because of having taken place in its new, innovative format, has set the bar high for future years of the festival,” says the flautist Jana Semerádová, a member of the festival’s artistic council. “It’s not just that every concert was recorded, but also that each concert had a moderator—I was enchanted by the interviews with the artists, and especially with Jörg Widmann and Kiya Tabassian,” Ms. Semerádová added.

The director for the two concert broadcasts by Czech Television (the opening concert and Immersed in Stravinsky) was Adam Rezek. Another twenty concerts were streamed by the Prague Spring Festival in cooperation with Mimesis Film and the directors Jan Baset Střítežský, Petr Václav, and Adam Oľha. Introducing the concerts were the mezzo-soprano Markéta Cukrová, the actors Jan Budař, Jan Cina, and Jan Sklenář, and last but not least the moderator and singer Marek Šulc.

Next year’s Prague Spring Festival will take place from 12 May to 3 June 2022. The programme will be announced in mid-November 2021, and ticket sales will begin at the same time.

A Daring and Elegant Solution

Opening with Smetana’s Má vlast has been a fixed part of the festival’s identity since 12 May 1946. “The freer and more colourful dramaturgy after 1989 soon became apparent with the opening concert as well, as it became an international event with performances by prestigious ensembles from around the world, a counterpart to the proven approach of the Czech Philharmonic and other Czech orchestras, and the promotion of Smetana’s works in other countries. One chief example of this would be the opening concert performed by the Vienna Philharmonic with Daniel Barenboim in 2017,” recalled the festival director.

Occupying a special place among the opening concerts of this new era was the enthusiastically received student performance of Má vlast given by Jiří Bělohlávek and the Symphony Orchestra of the Prague Conservatoire in 2011 as part of the celebrations of the 200^th anniversary of that great musical institution.

This year’s opening concert was similarly extraordinary. Václav Luks and the ensemble Collegium 1704, significantly augmented by players from around the world, set themselves the goal of using instruments corresponding to the period to evoke the authentic sound and style of the complete work’s premiere in 1882. “This unusual but unquestionably legitimate approach led to a number of often intense debates among members of the professional community and the lay public. The clearly prevailing opinion was that this was an important and fundamental expansion of our perspective on Smetana’s masterpiece,” said Roman Bělor, and adding to his comments was the conductor Libor Pešek: “It was a daring and elegant solution, and it succeeded. I congratulate you!”

Artist-in-Residence Jörg Widmann

“I am enormously pleased that we were able to fully realise Jörg Widmann’s residency,” says the festival programme director Josef Třeštík. He followed up a streamed appearance with the Schumann Quartett and a recital with the pianist Denis Kozhukhin with a performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with the Prague Philharmonia and Emmanuel Villaume. The audience in attendance rewarded the concert in the Rudolfinum’s Dvořák Hall with tempestuous applause, and the live broadcast of the concert also got a high number of views. “I am proud that this year’s Prague Spring Festival became the stage for Jörg Widmann’s Czech debut and that the Czech public has become acquainted with his extraordinary wealth of personality in three programmes combining Widmann’s own music with the music of the classics, to which he relates as a creative artist,” said Mr. Třeštík.

The Prague Spring Festival’s Historic First

“It is always tremendously valuable when music is brought to life by an interpreter who is closely associated with the composer,” says the festival programme director Josef Třeštík. “This is the case with Dennis Russell Davies and Philip Glass, who share the bond of many years of artistic collaboration and personal friendship.”The Czech premiere and the on-line streaming of Glass’s Symphony No. 12 with the Brno Philharmonic, the multi-genre singer Angélique Kidjo, and the organist Christian Schmitt represented one of the festival’s highlights. Thanks to the Prague Spring Festival, the first publicly available recording of this work was made, and listeners from around the world can access it on the festival website.

The International Dimension

For the festival, it has been tremendously important to maintain its international profile in this difficult situation and for top musicians from around the world to come to Prague. Appearing at the Prague Spring Festival for the very first time was the Romanian-Austrian conductor Ion Marin alongside the violinist Dalibor Karvay, also making his festival debut

“Ilan Volkov is a conductor known for his appetite for the less frequently performed repertoire,” says Josef Třeštík. “Among the works he performed with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra was the Sinfonietta by Alexander Zemlinsky—a conductor and composer closely associated with Prague.”

The Prague Spring Festival has long striven to achieve synergy between the international music competition that it holds and the festival’s main programme. This year, just such a connection was created by Garrick Ohlsson, who was the chairman of the jury and also appeared in a solo recital. “Ohlsson is one of the festival’s regular guests, but even so, he manages to surprise the Prague public whenever he returns. This year, he prepared a programme consisting entirely of 20^th-century music, and for the very first time this year he performed Leoš Janáček’s Sonata,” says Josef Třeštík.

Johannes Moser is one of the most sought-after cellists, and he collaborates with the world’s most distinguished conductors. “It’s wonderful that he performed Schumann’s Cello Concerto in Prague with the young conductor František Macek. Collaborations like this always give Prague Spring Debut a new dimension,” Mr. Třeštík emphasised.

Extraordinary Projects in the Field of Early Music

Although Josquin Desprez was one of the greatest and most interesting composers of the Renaissance, his music is heard rather seldom in Prague. On the occasion of the 500^th anniversary of his death, Huelgas Ensemble, one of the best vocal ensembles of its kind, prepared a programme especially for the Prague Spring Festival devoted to Josquin’s late works. The live broadcast from the Prague Crossroads venue was one of the concerts with the largest viewership abroad.

This year we are also commemorating the 400^th anniversary of the execution of 27 Bohemian noblemen on Prague’s Old Town Square. One of then was Kryštofa Harant of Polžice and Bezdružice, a Renaissance man in the original sense of the word, i.e. a wonderful composer. Vojtěch Semerád, the music director of the ensemble Cappella Mariana, prepared an original programme for the Prague Spring Festival as a stylised musical documentation of Harant’s journey to Jerusalem. As the festival’s programme director Třeštík explained, “The programme presented excerpts from Harant’s own travel book read by Šaša Rašilov. Harant’s vocal polyphonic music sung by the choir Cappella Marianna was heard in dialogue with music of Arabia and Persia performed by the Canadian ensemble Constantinople—music that the Czech humanist might have heard on his journey.”

The Stravinsky Anniversary

This year’s dramaturgy commemorated the 50^th anniversary of the death of one of the greatest composers of the 20^th century, Igor Stravinsky. His music was heard throughout the festival, including his ballets Apollon musagète and Jeu de cartes and the suite from his ballet The Firebird. “We also offered audiences some of Stravinsky’s less frequently played works, such at the ballet Jeu de cartes, or his very diverse, inventive, and yet playful chamber music wonderfully interpreted by the Prague Philharmonia and the conductor Mariána Lejava,” says Josef Třeštík.

The International Music Competition

This year’s piano competition was in great demand—at a time when events were generally being cancelled, the competition was one of the few cultural bright spots, and corresponding to this was the plentiful participation of 160 pianists. “A new feature was chamber music in the competition semi-finals, and that gave us a better picture of the candidates’ quality,” said the pianist Martin Kasík, a member of the jury. “I was pleased by the quality of the Czech pianists, and those among them who are worthy of the greatest recognitionare Matouš Zukal, who won second prize, and Vojtěch Trubač, who earned an honourable mention. The winner was the Korean pianist Lee Dongha, who demonstrated his maturity especially in the competition finals. The biggest winner is the competition itself, because holding it at such a high level of quality under the present conditions was truly a remarkable achievement,” said Kasík in conclusion.

The Prague Spring Competition for string quartet was also very special. Because of the epidemic, the jury of experts evaluated the first two rounds of the competition based on video recordings. The three quartets invited to the finals, which took place on 13 May at Prague’s Dvořák Hall in the Rudolfinum, were the Arete String Quartet from South Korea, the Kukal Quartet from the Czech Republic, and the Selini Quartet from Austria. “The quality of all three finalists was high,” said the violinist Leoš Čepický, a jury member. The jury decided unanimously to award first prize to the Arete String Quartet, second prize was not awarded, and third prize was divided between the Kukal Quartet and the Selini Quartet. “I’m glad that during these uncertain times, when music was the lowest priority, Prague Spring managed to hold the quartet competition. Young people need to be faced with such challenges and to know that what they are doing is meaningful. That gives them hope for the future,” added Mr. Čepický.

The Festival Supports Young Talents

Besides holding an international music competition, the Prague Spring Festival also makes an effort to support young talents in its main programmes. There were two extraordinarily successful masterclasses given by artists appearing at the festival—the pianist Garrick Ohlsson and the clarinettist Jörg Widmann. They can be seen on the Prague Spring Festival website. The masterclasses got more views than even some of the concerts, which shows the benefit of such projects and the high demand for them.

Once again, the festival presented the programme Salon ZUŠ—a concert given by pupils from elementary schools of the arts, with the introduction of thirty talented young musicians—scholarship winners of the project MenART who spent a year working under the guidance of the mentors Kateřina Kněžíková (soprano), Jan Fišer (violin), Ivo Kahánek (piano), and Jan Ostrý (flute).

A Varied Palette of Genres

“The Prague Spring Festival was greatly pleased and honoured to have the opportunity of holding a concert celebration for Martin Kratochvíl on what happened to be his 75^th birthday. He has been a leading figure of Czech jazz and fusion since the late 1960s,” says festival director Roman Bělor. At the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, he appeared in both types of musical ensemble that are typical for him. First was a jazz trio with the guitarist Tony Ackerman and the drummer Imram Musa Zangi, then in the second half of the programme he played with Jazz Q, a legendary group with Zdeněk Fišer (guitar), Přemysl Faukner (bass guitar), and Filip Jeníček (drums), all of whom are also important musicians in both genres. “We were able to witness Kratochvíl’s unwavering élan for ourselves,” says Roman Bělor.

Introducing herself at the festival as a representative of the youngest generation of jazz musicians was the singer Marta Kloučková, who crosses over between jazz and related genres both as a lyricist and a composer. At the concert in the Mercedes Forum, a popular alternative venue at the Prague Spring Festival, she was accompanied by Vít Křišťan (piano), Jan Fečo (contrabass), and Marek Urbánek (drums). A special guest at the concert was the guitarist David Dorůžka, who has appeared at the Prague Spring Festival before. The core of the programme consisted of numbers from the award-winning album Loving Season (2018) and songs from a forthcoming recording by Marta Kloučková.

Acknowledgement of Our Partners

Last but not least, the festival owes a debt of thanks to its supporters. The Prague Spring Festival could not take place without the support of the Czech Ministry of Culture, the City of Prague, and the companies innogy, CETIN, Subterra, and Mercedes-Benz. We wish to thank our media partners Czech Television, Czech Radio, and the publisher Economia. The agency CzechTourism also contributed towards this year’s festival. We also owe thanks to the individual donors who belong to our patrons club, the Friends of Prague Spring.

Looking back at a unique Má vlast

Pavel Trojan — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 14:21:07 +0000

On the eve of the final concert of the 76^th annual Prague Spring Festival, we are taking a look back at this year’s opening concert through a short documentary film “Smetana de Luks” by the director Kateřina Hager,which offers a unique perspective on the behind-the-scenes preparations of this extraordinary event, when Collegium 1704 under the baton of Václav Luks performed Smetana’s Má vlast. “It was terribly interesting to follow Václav Luks from the first rehearsals,” says the director Hager. “There was his detailed work and his ability to unite an orchestra with truly international personnel. There were also powerful moments because the festival’s opening concert took place after a period when cultural events with an audience in the hall had been banned for a long time,” Hager emphasised. The 15-minute film will be premiered on 2 June at 8 p.m. on the Prague Spring Festival website.

“It certainly need not be emphasised that performing Má vlast at the opening concert of the Prague Spring Festival was an enormous challenge for Collegium 1704,” said Václav Luks in retrospect. “In spite of all of the difficulties connected with the uncertain situation when all kinds of measures were in place because of the epidemic, I view the opportunity of being involved with Smetana’s ingenious music and of appearing before a live audience as a gift, together with the responsibility implied by the importance of such a task. I expected that for the average listener who is used to the sound of Má vlast performed by a modern symphony orchestra, the sound of historical instruments from Bedřich Smetana’s day might be surprising or even difficult to accept. So I was overjoyed by the great number of positive reactions, and not only from Czechs, and also by the enthusiastic reception of our performance abroad. For us musicians, however, the Má Vlast project was not only a major artistic task, but alsoa moment of hope and a symbolic full stop after a long time without the possibility of gathering and doing creative work together,” said Luks in conclusion.

The Prague Spring Festival also made an audio recording of the concerts on 12 and 13 May, which are now being processed and prepared for release on CDs and in digital distribution.

We are launching ticket sales to four concerts

Pavel Trojan — Fri, 21 May 2021 09:50:51 +0000

We are pleased to announce that four concerts in the second half of the festival will take place with an audience in the hall. You can already buy tickets now for these concerts:

26/5 Prague Spring Debut

28/5 Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno

31/5 Apollo, Leader of the Muses

3/6 Closing Concert

Conditions of admittance to the concert please read here.

Garrick Ohlsson – recital

Pavel Trojan — Sat, 15 May 2021 09:50:38 +0000

Don’t miss the piano recital of Garrick Ohlsson – Sunday 16 May. The concert will take place without an audience in the hall. You can watch the live broadcast of the concert as well as two dozen others on our website for free!

“I know and trust my Prague friends!”

“One of the great privileges of having a long and quite successful career is the possibility to revisit many old ‘friends’ in the repertory”, says Garrick Ohlsson, a regular guest at the Prague Spring Festival. The American pianist goes on to say: “This season I chose, for no special reason, to come back to the Prokofiev Op. 84, which I learned when I was 15, and the Scriabin 5^th sonata, which I first played when I was 34. Both are favourites – the Prokofiev for its ripe melodic qualities and vast dramatic scope, and Scriabin for its intense ecstatic excitement.” This time, Ohlsson’s Prague Spring programme will be based on 20^th-century piano sonatas. “Janacek’s Sonata I.X.1905 is magnificent, and I had never played it, so it’s new to me this year. Similarly, the Szymanowski #3 is recent in my life – he is a composer that fascinates me, coming, as he does, a little from the world of Chopin and Scriabin, but with other influences. All these works are wildly difficult, but so are Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Of course, the Szymanowski is quite a challenge to the listener (and pianist!) right at the beginning of the evening, but I know and trust my Prague friends!”

The winners of the piano category announced

Pavel Trojan — Sat, 15 May 2021 09:45:03 +0000

On Friday night we welcomed in the Dvořák´s hall of the Prague Rudolfinum the finalists of the piano category. Today evening was in the spirit of the piano finals. Throughout the evening we could have heard the compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Ludwig van Beethoven.

The contestants gave out all they could on the stage and the jury took long to decide, but there can only be one winner.

The prizes were awarded as follows:

1st prize-Dongha Lee from Republic of Korea

2nd prize-ex aequo Jaeyoung Lee and Matouš Zukal

3rd prize was not awarded

The winner Jaeyoung Lee was also awarded the following prizes: Prize of the City of Prague to the most successful laureate, the Czech Music Fund Foundation Prize for the best performance of the piece commissioned by Jana Vöröšová for the IMC Prague Spring 2021, the Rudolf Firkušný Prize for the best laureate.

The jury awarded Vojtěch Trubač with the honorable mention.

The Gideon Klein foundation prize awarded to the most successful Czech participant in the entire competition went to Matouš Zukal.

Thank you for your sticking with us and we hope that next year we will see you in the hall with us.