News
National Theatre Brno announces a new season of events: The Magic Flute, Otello, and Cinderella
The theatre (NTB) has released details of the 2021/2022 season, which includes premieres of five operas and three ballets. Janáček Opera has dubbed the upcoming season “Follow the voice of the heart…”, and in keeping with this, Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten is scheduled, directed by David Radok. The long-awaited, The Greek Passion by Bohuslav Martinů under the direction of Jiří Heřman, and Mozart’s The Magic Flute directed by Miroslav Krobot are included, too. NTB’s ballet celebrates the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s birth by presenting a piece entitled Beethoven with Mário Radačovský as the choreographer. After more than thirty years, Cinderella, a ballet by Sergei Prokofiev, returns to the stage of the Janáček Theatre as a brand-new production choreographed by Markéta Pimek Habalová. The new season reflects the sentiment of the heading “Honouring the Greats”. more
SoundCzech is to host a conference in Brno in September, the main impetus being to restart the musical scene after the pandemic. The event is intended for representatives of clubs, managers, artists and other professionals from the Czech Republic and abroad. more
Zdenek Merta – a composer, producer, pianist and singer – has a new CD out on the occasion of his 70th birthday entitled Zdenek Merta u klavíru (Zdenek Merta at the Piano), which reviews his career to date. Guest artists on the recordings include musician Ondřej Pivec, the concert master of the Czech Philharmonic Jiří Vodička, oboist Vilém Veverka and singer & actor Vojtěch Dyk. more
JazzFestBrno, an international jazz festival, has announced the name of its first guest for next year. British artist Jacob Collier, a social-media sensation who has risen to prominence videos made in his from his bedroom, is to come to Brno. The festival shall be the only event at which the 26-year-old multi-instrumentalist and singer is to perform in the Czech Republic. more
News: Petr Císař, a former member of the Janáček Opera, has died. He was 43 years old
The National Theatre Brno has announced today the death of Petr Císař, a former soloist and singer in the choir. more
Summer with the Opera of the National Theatre Brno
This summer, the ensemble of the Janáček Opera at the National Theatre Brno is again putting on traditional open-air performances in the courtyard of Špilberk Castle. For the first time their summertime schedule shall include performances at the open-air stage of the Amphitheatre in Mikulov. Well-known works are planned, such as Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Bizet’s Carmen, Verdi’s La traviata and a new production of Puccini’s La bohème. more
The concert for today by the Brno Philharmonic entitled Novák 100 comprises three works by authors linked to Brno – Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Jan Novák and Leoš Janáček. With Dennis Russell Davies, Chief Conductor, conducting, the programme shall be broadcast on the Czech Radio Vltava. more
News: Acoustic model of the hall of the Janáček Cultural Centre arrives in Brno
A miniature, but a faithful copy of the Janáček Cultural Centre at the scale of 1: 10 shall serve for testing the audio parameters of the project. The model arrived at the Brno Exhibition Centre today, where a team led by Yasuhisa Toyota, a world-renowned acoustician, will carry out acoustic measurements and check calculations that have been made. more
Brno Music Marathon Festival is happening in the middle of this August
As the designated UNESCO City of Music, Brno is all set to be filled with harmonious sounds of music once again. Hundreds of musicians will perform in the city over the four days of the festival, with dozens of concerts scheduled that shall make the squares, streets and concert halls resound with music. Encompassing a variety of genres, this year’s Brno Music Marathon will take place in mid-August, just like before, and it’s going to be one of the few public events to happen this year. The line-up includes Lenka Dusilová, Juwana Jenkins, Sisa Feher, Fanfara Transilvania, Malalata, Circus Brothers, Horňácká cimbálová muzika Petra Mičky (the Horňácko Cimbalom Band of Petr Mička), Javory and a host of others. Street “rooms” by Kateřina Šedá is not absent from it, either. more
Connection, unity, contemplation - these words can be used to describe the musical evening of Schola Gregoriana Pragensis under the direction of David Eben and organist Tomáš Thon, which took place yesterday as part of the Easter Festival of Sacred Music at the church of St. Thomas. Not only the singing of a Gregorian chant, but also the works of composer Petr Eben (1929-2007) enlivened the church space with sound and colour for an hour. more
With a concert called Ensemble Inégal: Yesterday at the church of St. John, Zelenka opened the 31st edition of the Easter Festival of Sacred Music, this time with the suffix Terroir. This slightly mysterious word, which is popularly used in connection with wine, comes from the Latin word for land or soil, and carries the sum of all the influences, especially the natural conditions of a particular location and on the plants grown there. This term is thus metonymically transferred to the programme of this year's VFDH, as it consists exclusively of works by Czech authors, thus complementing the ongoing Year of Czech Music. more
For the fourth subscription concert of the Philharmonic at Home series, which took place on 14 March at the Besední dům and was entitled Mozartiana, the Brno Philharmonic, this time under the direction of Czech-Japanese conductor Chuhei Iwasaki, chose four works from the 18th to 20th centuries. These works are dramaturgically linked either directly through their creation in the Classical period or by inspiration from musical practices typical of that period. The first half of the concert featured Martina Venc Matušínská with a solo flute. more
The second stop on the short Neues Klavier Trio Dresden's Czech-German tour was at the concert hall of the Janáček Academy of Music on 6 March at 16:00. A programme consisting of world premières by two Czech and two German composers was performed in four cities (Prague, Brno, Leipzig and Dresden). more
The last opera première of the National Theatre Brno this year was Hurvínek Sells the Bride, which was co-produced with the Spejbl and Hurvínek Theatre. The première continued the thematic focus associated with the Year of Czech Music and took place on 24 November in the large hall of the Reduta Theatre. more
