Important information for ticket holders for the concert at Municipal House on 1/6/2026
Dear ticket holders for the Prague Spring concert on 1 June at 8 pm at Municipal House (Argerich & Shani & Rotterdam Philharmonic): We regret to announce that, for personal reasons, Mrs Martha Argerich has cancelled all her European concerts during this period and will not be appearing at the Prague Spring.
👉 Nevertheless, similar situations have often given rise to huge sensations.
On this day, accompanied by Lahav Shani conducting the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, one of the greatest musical talents on the current classical music scene will start to write his first Prague Spring chapter: Austrian pianist Lukas Sternath. Over the last three years, the twenty-five-year-old winner of the International ARD Music Competition in Munich and holder of the title ECHO Rising Star 2024 has given his debuts at the Salzburg Festival, the BBC Proms, the Elbphilharmonie, London’s Wigmore Hall and the Leipzig Gewandhaus. The Vienna Philharmonic and Jakub Hrůša conducting the Bamberg Symphony have also shown great faith in him in their given seasons.
👉 The concert programme remains unchanged, thus it includes the originally scheduled Concerto for Piano and Orchestra in A minor by Robert Schumann.
We are well aware that you were looking forward to hearing Martha Argerich. Yet life presents us with situations we can neither change nor influence. In any case, we now venture to put forward Lukas Sternath’s Czech debut as one of the most surprising and most fascinating events of this year’s festival. This amiable
Viennese artist, whose success is still something of a mystery to him, could rank alongside the likes of superb pianists Friedrich Gulda, Sviatoslav Richter or Daniil Trifonov, who gave their Czech debuts at the Prague Spring.
👉 We trust you will be there with us.
For further information regarding tickets for the concert at Municipal House on 1 June, please contact us via email at info@enigoo.cz or phone +420 461 049 232.
Lukas Sternath
“I try to communicate in the most honest and direct way possible, not just with the audience, but with everything – with the work, the instrument, the hall, the atmosphere, even with myself,” states Lukas Sternath on his approach to classical music, which he grew to appreciate fully during his four years singing in the world-famous Vienna Boys’ Choir. He first sat at the piano aged five, concentrating primarily on jazz improvisation until the age of eleven. He loves Keith Jarrett to this day. At the ARD Competition in Munich in 2022 he won a total of eight prizes, including First Prize and the Audience Prize. One year earlier he garnered multiple awards at the Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in Bolzano, the International Schubert Competition in Dortmund and the European Piano Competition in Bremen. A pupil of Igor Levit and Paul Lewis, he is currently a BBC New Generation Artist and also curator of his own chamber series at Vienna’s Musikverein – a first in the history of this venue. This season he gave his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic, and next season sees him appearing in the USA for the first time, at the famous Chicago Symphony Center. He has also performed with the London Philharmonic, the Vienna and Bamberg Symphonies under Czech conductors Petr Popelka and Jakub Hrůša, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and with the Munich Philharmonic. The daily Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote the following: “He has what a soloist needs: The ability to take his time.” Lukas Sternath’s Prague Spring appearance marks his Czech debut.
“Being a pianist has taught me that we can decide every day what we want to practise, and how to approach life. We have more in our hands than we realise,” states Lukas Sternath.
