Classical Music

News

This Thursday, the Brno Philharmonic will open its 68th concert season. The gala evening will traditionally be led by Principal Conductor Dennis Russell Davies, who will begin his sixth year at the helm of the orchestra. The season will open with a monumental full-length work, Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" . The Philharmonic performed it with great success a month ago at a prestigious concert in Rheingau, Germany, in collaboration with the Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno and soloists Pavla Vykopalová and Jana Hrochová.  more

The Actors' Association has announced the nominations for the 2023 Thalia Awards. Several of them were awarded to actors and singers from Brno theatres - Janáček Opera of the National Theatre Brno and the Brno City Theatre.  more

Contemporary concerts of classical music repeatedly extract only a limited part of all that has ever been created from the infinite number of musical works for its "here and now". The programme of the Moravian Autumn will therefore offer what people can otherwise hear quite rarely. It will present compositions from the Baroque to the present day, often in Czech or world premières. The opening concert of the festival will be conducted by Dennis Russell Davies, chief conductor of the Brno Philharmonic. For the second year, the festival also includes the New World of Moravian Autumn, a series of concerts prepared by JAMU students. Accompanying programmes also include a Musicology Colloquium, discussions with composers, performers and musicologists and the presentation of two new books: one dedicated to Leoš Janáček, the other to Antonín Rejcha.  more

A unique opportunity to play on one stage with such acclaimed piano talents as Jan Bartoš and David Mareček is offered to all pianists, regardless of age and musical education, by the traditional event of the Brno Marathon Music Festival called PIANORELAY.  more

Tomorrow, i.e., Wednesday 21 June on European Music Day, a happening will take place, the biggest event of the year-long project titled Year of Choirs. Zelný Trh will host 33 amateur choirs from Brno and the vicinity, under the direction of choirmaster Petr Kolař. Hradišťan & Jiří Pavlica have also accepted the invitation to join the nearly 600-strong musical ensemble in the grand finale.  more

The Brno cultural newsletter brings you an overview of events and opportunities in the forthcoming period for theatres, clubs, festivals and cultural events in Brno.  more

A multimedia exhibition devoted to the life and work of Vratislav Bělský - a prominent Brno musicologist and leading expert in the interpretation of early music - opens today at the Moravian Library (MZK).  more

The closing of the Brno opera season belongs to Richard Strauss’s Salome. The work, based on the play of the same name by British playwright Oscar Wilde, returns to the Brno stage after twenty-three years. The fourth Brno adaptation of this title was created by director David Radok. After having produced Britten’s Peter Grimes, he returns with chief conductor Marko Ivanović, costume designer Zuzana Ježková, Dragan Stojčevski as the new set designer and Andrea Miltnerová as the new choreographer. The title roles will be performed by Linda Ballová, Eva Urbanová, Jaroslav Březina and Birger Radde.  more

The Czech Ensemble Baroque will present a Czech program today at the Cathedral of St Peter and St Paul, the last concert of the 11th season of the Bach to Mozart series! The main guest of the evening will be the world-renowned countertenor Andreas Scholl. The motets by the Czech conductor František Ignác Tůma, whose work will be performed by Scholl for the first time in his career, will be showcased in a modern world premiere.  more

The 28th edition of the Concentus Moraviae Festival will remind us of the musical life between Kroměříž and Vienna in the 17th and 18th centuries. Concerts are traditionally held in the courtyards and salons of chateaux, in castle halls, and in the pews of basilicas, churches and synagogues. The legendary Viennese ensemble Concentus Musicus Wien has accepted the position of ensemble in residence. Today’s opening concert will feature this ensemble under the direction of Czech conductor Tomáš Netopil.  more

Feature articles

Trains as a symbol of departure, arrival and return were the main theme of the second edition of the International Festival of Jewish Culture ŠTETL FEST, which took place at the end of August and beginning of September. The four-day program combined the historical events of Jewish citizens taken from Brno to concentration camps during World War II with the modern stories of Ukrainians who fled to the city from the war in their country. To commemorate these events, the Memorial to the Disappeared was unveiled at the opening of the festival at Brno's main railway station and visitors can see the exhibition entitled Stories from Ukraine in various Brno locations until the end of September. The final concert directed by the Škampa Quartet under the title Trains, held on Sunday 3 September at the Besední dům, was a meaningful end to the festival, during which the question of leaving and returning was musically and historically reinforced. more

The international group Ensemble Fantasmi, which focuses on older music and was founded by flautist Paul Leenhouts, performed in Olomouc, at the Znojmo Music Festival and also visited Brno during a small European tour. The group presented themselves to the audience on Monday 24 July at Červeny kostel, where they, along with the invited singers prepared vocal-instrumental works by Czech Baroque composers. The reviewed concert in the Hall of Merciful Brothers on 25 July, which was also the last night of the tour, was in the same spirit. Its subheading Musica Bohemica pointed to a varied programme consisting of instrumental works by Czech composers of the Baroque and Classical periods.  more

The trilogy of lute concerts at the chateau within the Concentus Moraviae International Music Festival concluded on the evening of Sunday, 18 June. Once again, the audience at the Ceremonial Hall of the Rájec nad Svitavou Castle saw performances by Ryosuke Sakamoto on the Renaissance lute and David Bergmüller on the Baroque lute. Both prepared their own recital for the audience, dedicated to the given historical period, finally joining their artistry at the end of the concert. There was also a slight change in the program of the Renaissance block, which was more than welcome given the expansion of the repertoire and the offer of interesting - often lesser-known - lute pieces.  more

The Concentus Moraviae International Music Festival has been underway in thirteen Moravian towns since the end of this May. The theme of the twenty-eighth edition, titled Between Kroměříž and Vienna, highlights the interconnectedness of the seat of the Olomouc archbishops and the Imperial Habsburg court. The concert held on Friday, 16 June in the reconstructed church of the Cistercian Abbey Porta Coeli, offered the audience a musical probe into the Moravian Baroque.  more

Although this year’s 28th edition of the Concentus Moraviae international music festival embraces the theme Between Kroměříž and Vienna, the three-day project Island of Lutes by virtuoso lutenist and guitarist Pierre Pitzl holds a special place in its program design. From 16 to 18 June, the lute, vihuela or baroque guitar brought life to the castle grounds in Lysice and Rájec-Jestřebí with performances of  works by Renaissance and early Baroque composers. The noteworthy culmination of the project was prepared by the organizers of the festival on Saturday, 17 June on the premises of the Rájce-Jestřebí Chateau. In addition to the vihuela and Baroque guitar player Pierre Pitzl, it also featured Renaissance lute player Ryosuke Sakamoto and theorbist David Bergmülller  more

For the twenty-eighth year running, the Concentus Moraviae International Music Festival presents dramaturgically varied and interpretively refined evenings set not only in concert halls, but also in courtyards and chateau salons, castle halls, basilicas, churches and synagogues. The theme of this year’s 28th edition is Between Kroměříž and Vienna. Vienna, the cultural centre of Europe, served as the seat of the Habsburg emperors, while Kroměříž was the home of the archbishops of Olomouc. The dramaturgy of this year’s edition was prepared by a trio of respected experts: the Dean of the JAMU Faculty of Music, harpsichordist, organist and musicologist Barbara Maria Willi; historian, musicologist and choirmaster Vladimír Maňas; and Otto Biba, Austrian musicologist and long-time director of the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde archive.  more

The celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Brno’s Besední dům, which take place within its premises and elsewhere, have an interesting and distinguished dramaturgy that manages to transport the audience to the early days of this concert venue. Two concerts took place on 4 and 5 May and were entitled “Janáček” and “Horňácká muzika”. I took part in the first one; it was a truly momentous experience prepared by the Brno Philharmonic and Petr Mička’s Horňácká muzika. Friday’s repeat of the concert was broadcast by Czech Television. Both nights were sold out and standing tickets were even added to the sale.  more

The Brno Philharmonic’s headquarters and one of Brno’s most important historical and cultural landmarks – the Besední dům – celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. Exactly on 3 April 1873, when the auditorium (great hall) of the building designed by architect Theophil von Hansen, author of the famous Musikverein in Vienna, was ceremonially opened, this magnificent building became the centre of Brno’s culture and its distinctive artistic life. A century and a half later – on Monday 1 May 2023 – an afternoon gathering and a subsequent concert entitled When Smetana First Played in Brno. . . will launch a series of concerts that pay tribute to unique milestones in the city’s cultural history.  more

I talked to Barbara Maria Willi, the dean of the Faculty of Music at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, dramaturge, teacher, populariser of classical music, harpsichordist, organist and specialist on the hammered dulcimer, about the 20th anniversary edition of the music series Barbara Maria Willi presents..., as well as about historically informed interpretation and further plans. The fact that she was actively teaching a foreign student just before our talk is the best indication of how busy her schedule is.  more

The end of the Lenten season culminates in the Passover week with the commemoration of Christ’s Passion, whose motif was also the main dramaturgical idea of the Ensemble Opera Diversa concert entitled Lamento. The Wednesday evening of 29 March was devoted to works on lamentations by Czech and British composers. Conveniently, the ensemble chose for this concert the Baroque Hall of the Convent of the Merciful Brothers, which enhanced the Lenten atmosphere.  more

Upcoming events

KREMERATA BALTICA

04/10/23, 19:00 / Besední dům Concert Hall

Iva Bittová + Duo Jedlinský-Fischer

04/10/23, 19:30 / Hotel Kurdějov

ONUTĖ GRAŽINYTĖ – PIANO RECITAL

05/10/23, 19:00 / Besední dům Concert Hall

BALLADS FROM THE GOTIN GROVE

06/10/23, 19:00 / Besední dům Concert Hall

THE FLOWERING HORSE

07/10/23, 15:00 / Besední dům Concert Hall

Czech-Slovenian concert

07/10/23, 19:00 / Konvent Milosrdných bratří (Convent of Merciful Brothers)

REINER(KACE)

07/10/23, 20:00

MADRIGAL VČERA A DNES

08/10/23, 19:00 / Faculty of Civil Engineering VUT


Listening Guide: Leoš Janáček's Sinfonietta
with Jakub Hrůša
  more