Helena Kodýtková

Brno Philharmonic opened its 2026/2027 concert season on Sunday 20 September at the Janáček Theatre. The orchestra was joined for the occasion by guest conductor Petr Altrichter, its former chief conductor. Under the motto All Roads Lead to Brno, this season’s repertoire brings together composers and musical events with connections to the city and its rich cultural life. The opening concert therefore featured Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, a particularly fitting choice given that Brahms performed as a pianist at Brno’s Reduta in 1867. The programme opened with César Franck’s symphonic poem Psyché, for which the orchestra was joined by the Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno under the direction of Petr Fiala.  more

The tenth edition of the international opera and music festival Janáček Brno 2026 will take place from 13 October to 17 November 2026. With Janáček’s complete operatic output at its heart, alongside a programme of concerts and accompanying events, the festival offers a unique celebration of the composer’s work on an international scale. As part of the festival preview, National Theatre Brno is presenting four operas by Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) ahead of the festival itself. The series began on Saturday, 5 September, with The Makropulos Affair, which also opened Brno’s 2026/27 opera season.  more

The summer open-air Festival Špilberk, organised by the Brno Philharmonic, brought classical music and other genres to the grand courtyard of Brno’s Špilberk Castle during the third week of August. The festival’s 27th edition culminated on Sunday, 23 August, with Carl Orff’s cantata Carmina Burana, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies with the Czech Philharmonic Choir Brno. The concert also marked a symbolic farewell to trombonist Jiří Vydra, who brought his 45-year career with the Brno Philharmonic to a close that evening.  more

The Špilberk Festival organised by the Brno Philharmonic has put together a rich programme for the third week of August. This year’s 27th edition of the traditional open-air festival will once again fill the grand castle courtyard with music, with the aim of making classical music accessible even during the summer holidays. Tenor Štefan Margita chose this occasion to celebrate his 70th birthday. Together with soprano Jana Šrejma Kačírková and conductor Jan Kučera, Margita presented a concert of opera and musical arias on Saturday, 22 August.  more

Every year, ahead of the new concert season, the Brno Philharmonic organises the week-long open-air Špilberk Festival in the great courtyard of Brno’s Špilberk Castle, featuring a diverse programme of genres and ensembles.  On Thursday, 20 August, the festival project entitled Erik Truffaz & Gustav Brom Czech Radio Big Band: Around Miles was performed to commemorate the centenary of the birth of jazz trumpeter Miles Davis. This third concert in the series was co-produced with JazzFest Brno and Czech Radio and broadcast live on Czech Radio’s Vltava station.  more

The third concert of the 35th BRNO ’26 International Guitar Festival and Masterclasses took place on Tuesday, 4 August, in the Council Chamber of the New Town Hall. World-renowned guitarist Jorge Caballero presented a solo recital of works by classical composers arranged for acoustic guitar. On this occasion, the festival director Vladislav Bláha and his wife Tatiana Bláha Drobyš presented their new CD Dances Across the World and Through Time.  more

The prologue to the Concentus Moraviae festival took place, unusually, in the Italian city of Cremona – home of the Walter Stauffer Foundation and Academy, which nurtures string teaching and the city’s traditions – as early as mid-April. This year the Foundation concluded a memorandum of cooperation with the festival, resulting in the String Quartet Master Classes project in Kroměříž on 16–18 June. The stage was set on 15 June at Pernštejn Castle, where the Italian Quartetto di Cremona joined forces with cellist Peter Jarůšek for a memorable concert.  more

The Concentus Moraviae festival presented its sixteenth concert of the year, thematically dedicated to the number four, at Valtice Castle on Sunday, 7 June. This year’s international showcase brings together quartets of the most varied instrumental combinations and genres, presenting programmes across Moravia and Lower Austria centred on the quartet repertoire. In this spirit, the Baroque theatre of Valtice Castle hosted, in collaboration with the Young Classical Artists Trust, a concert focused on world music performed by the international Fibonacci Quartet. The young quartet – specifically Kryštof Kohout and Luna De Mol on violin, Elliot Kempton on viola, and Findlay Spence on cello – chose masterpieces by Leoš Janáček (1854–1928) and Béla Bartók (1881–1945).  more