Classical Music
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Change of conductor: Leoš Svárovský is to conduct the Concert with Laureates
The Brno Philharmonic has announced that due to the illness of Robert Kružík, Leoš Svárovský will take up the baton for Thursday's Concert with Laureates. more
A pre-première sneak peek at Manon Lescaut
The production team and soloists will appear in a pre-première preview of the new production of Puccini's opera Manon Lescaut. The preview will take place at the Janáček Theatre and can also be watched online. more
The Gloria Brunensis women's chamber choir is looking for sopranos
Brno's Gloria Brunensis choir is expanding and looking for women to join the soprano section. more
Confluere, co-commissioned by the Brno Philharmonic as a prelude to Mozart, will be performed in its Czech première
This week will see the Czech première of Confluere by Justé Janulyté, who composed it as a co-commission for the Brno Philharmonic and Radio France, L'Orchestre national des Pays de la Loire. The internationally acclaimed Lithuanian composer wrote it as a work to immediately precede Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor. The concerts are conducted by Tomáš Netopil, with French violinist Fedor Rudin, former concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic, and Pavel Nikl, one of the best Czech violists, as soloists. more
The National Theatre Brno is holding an audition for its opera chorus
The Janáček Opera of the National Theatre Brno is holding an audition for a second bass for its opera chorus. Full-time position. more
The Brno Philharmonic is holding an audition for a player in the 2nd violin group
The management of the Brno Philharmonic is holding an audition for a player in the 2nd violin group (tutti). The expected starting date is 1 September 2025. more
The Leoš Janáček Foundation invites you to a discussion with Natalia Romanová
The Leoš Janáček Foundation, the Society of Friends of the NdB and the JAMU Faculty of Music invite you to a discussion with singer and teacher Natalia Romanová. The event will take place in the Mozart Hall of the Reduta Theatre. more
Brno Contemporary Orchestra brings America to Tuřany
Planes from all over the world have been landing in Brno Tuřany for seventy years now, but there hasn't been a single direct flight from America. The Brno Contemporary Orchestra decided to make up for this symbolic deficit with a concert entitled From America to Tuřany. And it's in just the right Christmas spirit. The ensemble will transform the Tuřany Sokol hall into the heart of the Euro-American world. It will be filled with Argentine rhythms, minimalism, a postmodern waltz and unorthodox carols. more
Schnittke 90 & Bach: The Brno Philharmonic launches another subscription series
Johann Sebastian Bach as a ground-breaking composer and the composers who were inspired by his work are the subject of the concert Schnittke 90 & Bach, to be played by the Brno Philharmonic on Thursday and Friday, opening another subscription series. The concerts will be conducted by Robert Kružík at the Besední dům. more
Brno Contemporary Orchestra: A breath in and a long breath out for forty drowned children on Mendlovo náměstí
The concert is dedicated to the memory of the forty children drowned during World War II on Mendlovo náměstí (20 November 1944). The concert will feature the world premières of two commissioned compositions, Adagio for Orchestra by Adrián Demoč and the meditative Exercise of Breath and Spirit by Pavel Zlámal. Clarinettist Marek Švejkar will perform the Czech première of Domaines by Pierre Boulez and the final performance will be the somewhat atypical Actions by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. more
Feature articles
The Brno Philharmonic's New Year's concert on 1 January at the Janáček Theatre is already a well-established tradition. This year was no exception, and the orchestra, led by conductor Michel Tabachnik, gave a performance consisting mainly of works by Johann Strauss the Younger. This was the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra's show opening the 'Strauss Year'. After all, 2025 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the composer, dubbed the king of waltzes. Strauss's compositions were accompanied by works by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Richard Strauss and Dimitri Shostakovich. more
"Culture is a Bridge" was the theme of the second Czech-Austrian Partnership Concert, held on Friday, 20 December at Schloss Thalheim. It was the final evening of the 5th year of the pan-European project Czech Dreams 2024, and also part of the celebrations of the Year of Czech Music and the Concentus Moraviae international music festival. Culture is a bridge that connects not only different generations and social classes, but also entire nations. And the Czech Dreams project, which in 2024 alone presented music by Czech composers in 25 European cities in 17 different countries, is an eloquent example of this. In December alone, besides the final concert in Austria, six more concerts were performed in southern Europe, from Amarante in Portugal to Varaždin in Croatia. The concert was dedicated to the Lower Austrian Governor Erwin Pröll, who has long been committed to building and deepening relations between the Czech Republic and Austria. more
Christmas in Brno also means the traditional pre-Christmas concert of the Brno Contemporary Orchestra (BCO), this time entitled From America to Tuřany. It took place on 18th December and after a one-year break it returned to the Sokol Hall in Tuřany. The BCO, conducted by Pavel Šnajdr, performed works by Mauricio Kagel, Steve Reich, Trevor Grahl and, as always, Miloslav Kabeláč. Appearing together with the orchestra were four singers, Aneta Podracká Bendová, Kornél Mikecz, Michal Kuča and Martin Kotulan. At the end of the first half, Pavel Šnajdr set aside his baton and clapped the beat, joined by Petr Hladík. more
Ensemble Opera Diversa put a distinctive "spin" on its last orchestral concert of the year. It took place on 26 November at the Alterna music club, which is more a rock, electronica and indie pop hangout than an artistic music venue. The pair of selected pieces consisting of Vojtěch Dlask's premièred work Querell Songs for soprano saxophone and strings and Miloslav Ištvan's Hard Blues for pop-baritone, soprano, reciter and chamber ensemble also reflected this. Naturally, it was Ištvan's Hard Blues that gave the evening its name - the clash of the artistic, composed and purposefully "artistic" world (not meant pejoratively) with authentic African-American musical expressions springing from the depths of the soul of a man tested by life formed as the centre of the evening. This was not merely a stylistic inspiration, but more thematic, which was also evident in the opening piece of the evening. This was the composition Querelle Songs, inspired by Jean Genet's novel, previously dedicated to Ensemble Opera Diversa, but this time in a new instrumentation. more
Leoš Janáček's (1854-1928) Moravian national opera Jenůfa was brought to Brno for the Janáček Brno 2024 festival by the Moravian Theatre Olomouc in a co-production with the Janáček Opera NdB. Rather than using the Czech title Její pastorkyňa, the production team, headed by director Veronika Kos Loulová, decided to stage the work as Jenůfa, the name under which it is performed abroad. On Wednesday, 20 November, five days after its première in Olomouc, the audience at the Mahen Theatre could also see the latest domestic take on Janáček's most widely performed opera. The musical staging of the significantly modified original version from 1904 was the work of conductor Anna Novotná Pešková, and the main roles were played by Barbora Perná (Jenůfa), Eliška Gattringerová (Kostelnička), Josef Moravec (Laca Klemeň) and Roman Hasymau (Števa Buryja). more
On Saturday, 24 August, the Korean radio orchestra KBS Symphony Orchestra with its musical director - Finnish conductor and violinist Pietari Inkinen - came to Brno's Špilberk Festival with an exclusively romantic repertoire. The invitation was also accepted by South Korean violinist Bomsori Kim, a graduate of the prestigious Julliard School. more
For a quarter of a century now, the Brno Philharmonic has been organising the Špilberk Festival at the end of August in the courtyard of the castle of the same name. Four open-air musical evenings offer the audience a selection of concerts featuring classical, film and computer music, as well as often jazz and other genres. This makes it a diverse mix of performers and repertoires with an often pleasant, summery, laid-back ambience. This year's big and rapdily sold-out attraction was the Wednesday evening of 21 August, full of melodies from the James Bond films, performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, headed by world-renowned conductor, composer and arranger Steven Mercurio. During the concert, the audience also got to enjoy singers Sara Milfajtová, Vendula Příhodová and David Kraus. more
As part of its European tour, the Taiwanese Taipei Philharmonic Chamber Choir (TPCC), under the direction of artistic director and choirmaster Dr. YuChung Johnny Ku, took the city up on its invitation and visited Brno. The concert was held on Monday, 13th August in the hall of the newly renovated Passage Hotel. more
The final concert of this year's season of the Brno Philharmonic was devoted to works by Antonín Dvořák and Jean Sibelius at the Janáček Theatre. On Thursday, 20 June, Danish conductor Michael Schønwandt, who had not appeared before a Brno audience since January last year, took the lead of the Philharmonic. In the first half of the programme, the orchestra was accompanied by violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky. more
A year ago we would have found an Asian market in the New Synagogue in Velké Meziříčí. However, the town decided to buy the building and has started to make more fitting and dignified use of it. On Wednesday 5 June, during the ongoing Concentus Moraviae festival, audiences could visit this heritage site and enjoy a chamber concert by singer and violinist Iva Bittová and her women's choir Babačka, featuring musicians Jakub Jedlinský (accordion) and Pavel Fischer (violin). more
Manon Lescaut
“Manon is a heroine I believe in and therefore cannot fail to win the hearts of the audience. Why couldn't there be two operas about Manon? A woman like Manon can have more than one lover. Massenet feels her like a Frenchman, with powder and minuets. I will feel it like an Italian, with a desperate passion," declared Puccini determinedly, when his publisher tried to talk him out of composing an opera on a theme that had already been set to music. And he did well, because Manon Lescaut has been one of his great successes since its premiere in Turin in 1893. He kept what he promised and offered his audience passion, despair and hope that overcomes even the tragic end of the main character. After all, love never dies.
Merry Widow
The mission is clear - marry the widow! But so that her millions remain in the principality. There would be plenty of suitors, but Count Danilo, entrusted with the task, already has a love history with the widow Hana Glawari. So the affection is mutual, but the reluctance to admit that the old love has not rusted, either. When you add the other ingredients in the form of a party at the embassy in Paris, dancers from the famous U Maxima cabaret and witty dialogues, you have everything you need for a great operetta.