The fourth concert of this year’s MusicOlomouc festival took place on October 8 in the Corpus Christi Chapel of the Art Centre of Palacký University. It introduced Lichtzwang, Olomouc-based chamber ensemble founded last year, joined by Hungarian pianist Nóra Füzi. The concert presented the premiere of a new piece by Ostrava-based “classical” cimbalom player and composer Daniel … Read more
The second day of MusicOlomouc festival offered a concert of German chamber vocal ensemble AuditivVokal Dresden. Its members, in the Atrium of Art Centre of Palacký University, performed a program consisting exclusively of 21st-century music, including the world premiere of Hláskopelní a špitocudní by pianist, composer and the festival’s director Marek Keprt (*1974). Keprt wrote it especially for this ensemble. During … Read more
The 9th year of Olomouc-based international contemporary music festival MusicOlomouc was started on October 2. Its second concert, held at the theatre hall of the Art Centre of Palacký University, introduced Aleph Gitarrenquartett, which is a guitar quartet specializing in new music. The ensemble performed, among others, the world premiere of František Chaloupka’s (*1981) Guitar Quartet No. 1 “The … Read more
A part of the 15th year of music and environment Baltic Sea Festival, which was held during the last week of August in Stockholm, was a world premiere of a new piece for choir by composer Martin Smolka. The Name Emmanuel was written on the festival’s commission and was performed on August 27 at the Berwaldhallen concert hall by the … Read more
The fifth day of the Ostrava Days presented a concert of the festival’s residential orchestra Ostravská banda held at the Triple Hall Karolina. Led by four different conductors – Petr Kotík, Joseph Trafton, Bruno Ferrandis and Carl Bettendorf – the ensemble played a program consisting of nine compositions, none of which was more than 15 years old. One of them … Read more
As would be expected, the 10 days and 22 concerts of the 9th year of the contemporary music biennale Ostrava days included several Czech premieres. From those by Czech authors they were first of all the chamber Nothing is Free by Petr Cígler, September by Petr Bakla and The Long Sentence II by Michal Rataj. All of them were performed during … Read more
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
