Concentus Moraviae

Program: Henry Purcell: Music for a while John Dowland: In darkness let me dwell Tarquinio Merula: Canzonetta spirituale sopra alla nanna Brett Dean: Gertrude Fragments Henry Purcell: When I am laid in Earth Luciano Berio: Sequenza III for female voice Girolamo Kapsberger: Toccata Arpeggiata Antonio Cesti: Disseratevi abissi Giulio Caccini: Odi Euterpe Alessandro Piccini: Toccata VIII Barbara Strozzi: Lagrime mie Tarquinio Merula: Quando io voisi l'atra sera

Suk's Quartet Daniel Matejča, Natálie Toperczerová / violin Bohumil Bondarenko / viola Jakub William Gráf / cello

Apollo Musagète Quartet Paweł Zalejski, Bartosz Zachłod / violin Piotr Szumieł / viola Piotr Skweres / cello

Pavel Haas Quartet resident ensemble of the 31st year of the festival Veronika Jarůšková, Marek Zwiebel / violin Šimon Truszka / viola Peter Jarůšek / cello

Pavel Haas Quartet resident ensemble of the 31st year of the festival Veronika Jarůšková, Marek Zwiebel / violin Šimon Truszka / viola Peter Jarůšek / cello

Vision String Quartet (DE) Florian Willeitner, Daniel Stoll / violin Sander Stuart / viola Leonard Disselhorst / cello

Graindelavoix (BE) Andrew Hallock / alto Albert Riera / tenor Marius Peterson / tenor Arnout Malfliet / bass Björn Schmelzer / artistic director

Vision String Quartet (DE) Florian Willeitner, Daniel Stoll / violin Sander Stuart / viola Leonard Disselhorst / cello

Cello Republic Petr Špaček / Matej Štěpánek / Jan Zemen / Ivan Vokáč

Doric String Quartet (UK) Maia Cabeza, Ying Xue / violin Emma Wernig / viola John Myerscough / cello Program: Benjamin Britten String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 25 String Quartet No. 2 in C major, Op. 36

The desire to experiment and explore all kinds of genres has given the Clarinet Factory ensemble the opportunity to create a very specific style of music that is completely unmistakable. Four very diverse musicians, who have been playing together since 2007, benefit from their virtuoso and sonically perfect mastery of their instruments and, in addition to excellent interplay and human and musical connection, they present themselves as improvisers, composers, lyricists and singers. Their current work innovatively tries to use the possibilities of modern technology; the musicians cooperate and compete with their electronic image and are inspired by virtual possibilities. Percussionist Milan Cimfe supports the band with rhythmic patterns and records, loops and surprises in real time with unique layers of new recordings directly on stage.

Jindřich Pavliš, Vojtěch Nýdl, Luděk Boura and Petr “Pepíno” Valášek permanent guest: Milan Cimfe / percussion

Our audience's favorite group, the Belgian BL!NDMAN [sax], bring four of Bach's choral partitas in a unique arrangement by Eric Sleichim. It is said that Bach wrote these cycles of organ variations when he was only 15 years old, but later reworked them - so perfect are they. The distinctive sound spectrum of the four saxophones breathes a similar color as some baroque organs, so the choice of performing the choral partitas in an arrangement for these instruments is completely natural.

Pieter Pellens / soprano saxophone Hendrik Pellens / alto saxophone Piet Rebel / tenor saxophone Sebastiaan Cooman / baritone saxophone Eric Sleichim / artistic director and arranger

The Brno Philharmonic Hall will welcome orchestral colleagues from Prague, this time in chamber roles: in the Besední dům, the Czech Philharmonic Quartet will perform a Dvořák program together with pianist David Mareček; the evening will feature a special guest: Schumann's Five Folk Songs will be performed by cellist Lukáš Mareček accompanied by his father on piano. The young virtuoso will thus pay symbolic tribute to the composer, who fell in love with the beauty of the cello sound so much that he introduced it as a solo instrument in his compositions.

Czech Philharmonic Quartet Irena Jakubcová, Petra Brabcová / violin Eva Krestová / viola Václav Petr / cello

Lukáš Mareček / cello

David Mareček / piano

Its definition may sound complicated, but the Fibonacci sequence is ubiquitous: a numerical sequence where each number is the sum of the two previous ones (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13…) is related to the golden ratio, a symbol of harmony and natural beauty. We see it in the arrangement of flower petals, sunflower seeds or in the spirals on seashells. It also catches our eye on the snails of the instruments of the musicians who make up the Fibonacci Quartet. The achievements of the four young artists are astounding: in 2024 they won both the first prize and the audience prize at the prestigious Premio Paolo Borciani competition, they are the resident quartet at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the Grand Résident ensemble at ProQuartet in Paris for the 2025–2027 seasons. They will bring to Valtice the program Letters and Landscapes, referring to the title of Janáček's famous work and Bartók's love for the music of various landscapes, in the case of the fifth quartet, the Bulgarian one.

This year, the 25-year-old prominent Finnish quartet Meta4 returns to our festival with a brand new program, Polarkr(e)is. Meta4 pays homage to the sound world of the Arctic Circle through a pair of works by Finnish composers: the one-movement composition Fleurs de neige (Snow Flowers) was inspired by the glitter and structural symmetry of snow and was created especially for Meta4 by the famous Kaija Saariaho; the piece has no bar lines, constantly floats in the air, and all performances are unique – just like snowflakes. Sibelius’s quartet Voces intimae is one of the most famous Finnish chamber works. The string quartet Stringar was composed by the Italian-Indian composer and Norwegian Hardanger fiddler Krishna Nagaraj, combining the old and the new through Nordic folk dance melodies and became a real hit at Meta4 concerts. Where is the environmental theme Polarkr(e)is, declared in the title, reflected in this program? "The nature that surrounds us is the core of our culture. If we lose nature as it was and is, we will also lose the culture that created the songs and thoughts of the people who created these melodies," Meta4 state.

The meeting of violist Avri Levitan and the young ambitious musicians who make up the successful Trio Bohémo took place two years ago in Berlin during the unique educational project Musethica, which Avri built with the conviction that the teaching of music itself can be an act of communication between musicians and the audience. The perfect harmony between the master teacher and the talented student occurs not only on the level of interpretation, but we can also hear it in selected compositions: Dvořák composed his magnificent Piano Quartet in E flat major shortly before he accepted a professorship at the Prague Conservatory. And it was the piano quartet form that seventeen-year-old Josef Suk chose for his first excellent composition in the master's composition class.

Those expecting an octet made up of two quartets will be surprised by the unusual instrument combination on stage: the string quartet is complemented by a clarinet, French horn, bassoon and double bass! Schubert's masterpiece pushed the boundaries of chamber music, magnificent and intimate at the same time, a six-movement gem for all music lovers, which Schubert composed two hundred years ago at the request of the Viennese nobleman Ferdinand Troyer, an enthusiastic clarinetist. At its fourth residency concert, the Pavel Haas Quartet will perform it together with four musical friends, masters of their instruments.

This year's program is enriched with a special Kyjov dimension: the four playwrights also include local native, excellent violist and respected teacher Pavel Nikl, who is also a founding and former long-time member of the festival's resident ensemble Pavel Haas Quartet. The idea of ​​organizing their joint concert in Kyjov was therefore a natural choice. The selection of compositions fell on two gems of chamber literature - the string quintets of Antonín Dvořák and Johannes Brahms, masterpieces that, thanks to the two viola parts, sound doubly velvety, almost orchestral.

A quartet of virtuoso percussionists, performing together as the Colin Currie Quartet since 2018, pay tribute to the genius and courage of Steve Reich and the composers inspired by his work. The quartet is made up of respected world-class percussionists who perform as soloists, orchestral percussionists and chamber musicians; each member brings their own unique perspective on chamber percussion to the quartet. Together, they create spectacular sound performances that have been applauded by audiences at London's famous Wigmore Hall, as well as the 2,000-seat auditorium of the Beijing NCPA.

The name of the excellent young quartet Leonkoro refers to the children's book Brothers Lionheart, which tells of the all-powerful brotherly bond: the ensemble is framed by brothers Jonathan and Lukas Schwarz on first violin and cello. The beautiful hall of the Besední dům in Ivančice will be resounded by Leonkoro with two pieces inspired by love: Webern's Slow Movement overflows with romantic emotion and in no way resembles the author's later atonal compositions; Mendelssohn was also driven to compose his second string quartet by fresh infatuation. Among the musical confessions of love, the fifth of the six quartets of Opus 76 will be heard, a masterpiece by Joseph Haydn, who was over sixty at the time of the composition and enjoyed universal fame.

Since its foundation in 2000, the Quartetto di Cremona has built a worldwide reputation as a virtuoso and progressive chamber ensemble. Our festival is also pleased that the quartet's violist – Simone Gramaglia – is one of this year's dramaturgs. And the dramaturgical experience can also be heard in the concert program: it will take us from the elegant one-movement Italian Serenade by the Austrian Hugo Wolf, through the impressionistically dazzlingly colorful Ravel String Quartet to the only purely instrumental work by Giuseppe Verdi, who is the universally recognized personification of Italian music.

Since its foundation in 2000, the Quartetto di Cremona has built a worldwide reputation as a virtuoso and progressive chamber ensemble. Our festival is also pleased that the quartet's violist – Simone Gramaglia – is one of this year's dramaturgs. And the dramaturgical experience can also be heard in the concert program: it will take us from the elegant one-movement Italian Serenade by the Austrian Hugo Wolf, through the impressionistically dazzlingly colorful Ravel String Quartet to the only purely instrumental work by Giuseppe Verdi, who is the universally recognized personification of Italian music.

Since its foundation in 2000, the Quartetto di Cremona has built a worldwide reputation as a virtuoso and progressive chamber ensemble. Our festival is also pleased that the quartet's violist – Simone Gramaglia – is one of this year's dramaturgs, as is cellist Peter Jarůšek. Together, the gentlemen will perform a masterpiece of the chamber repertoire – Schubert's String Quintet in C major, sometimes called the "cello quintet" – the author unusually uses two cellos, creating a rich lower register and at times evoking an orchestral impression.

A literal soirée à la française awaits us at Boskovice Castle! Quatuor Diotima, an ensemble highly regarded for its ability to connect the French quartet tradition with the subtlest shades of contemporary chamber music, will offer a dramaturgically thoughtful arc of a trio of compositions by its compatriots: the fragmentary structure of excerpts from Pierre Boulez's Book for Quartet is followed by the sound poetry of Bitume by contemporary composer Gérard Pesson, who lets the quartet's sound slowly imprint and disappear like an image on the photosensitive bitumen (asphalt) of time. The program then crowns Debussy's String Quartet in G minor with its infinite shades of quartet colors.

Who could be a better guide to the chamber works of Robert Schumann than the Schumann Quartet, three of whose members are also his namesakes? The four young virtuosos will immerse us in Schumann's romantic depths and offer their modern reflection: the recently deceased Berlin composer Aribert Reimann was a direct descendant of the doctor who treated Schumann at the end of his life, and the Adagio in Memory of Robert Schumann is the result of his intense and very personal collaboration with the Schumann Quartet.

The concert is held in collaboration with the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition; the performance at our festival is one of the prizes that the Opus13 Quartet won as the overall winner of this competition in 2025.

This year, we will celebrate World Music Day with a dream concert: the excellent Bennewitz Quartet will perform the divine string quartets of Leoš Janáček and Antonín Dvořák in the impressive arcaded courtyard of the impressive castle in Moravský Krumlov. Still not enough superlatives and magic? We can add: the summer solstice will occur on Sunday, June 21st!

If you have ever felt like you were in a historical blockbuster during a concert in the breathtaking Hall of the Ancestral Hall of Milotice Castle, the American quartet Calidore will enhance that feeling even more: the renowned ensemble is renowned for its stylistic versatility, and its festival program called Sounds of America naturally includes a trip to Hollywood! It will take the listeners from the lyrical modernism of Samuel Barber, through the film-inspired romanticism of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and the sensitive minimalism of John Williams, to the music of contemporary trumpet wizard Wynton Marsalis, who looked back on his childhood in New Orleans, the cradle of jazz, when composing his quartet.

Chamber ensembles are usually named after their primary conductor or favorite composer; however, the famous Modigliani Quartet chose a bohemian painter as their patron: "We like his perception of art, he was his own and did not deal with trends. When you see a Modigliani, you remember him for the rest of your life. We try to make our sound as easily recognizable as Modigliani's painting," say the virtuoso French artists. And they successfully achieve their goal, which they demonstrate to our audience with a unique performance of a pair of quartets belonging to the basic pillars of the chamber canon.

The chateau in Velké Meziříčí will welcome the Belgian-French Danel Quartet. The renowned ensemble is a long-time global ambassador of the unmistakably dramatic music of Dmitri Shostakovich and the equally brilliant work of Mieczysław Weinberg, two composers strengthened in the tight conditions of the Soviet regime by a strong friendship and mutual professional respect. We are waiting for an exciting musical dialogue between two compositional masters of the 20th century, performed by the most skilled performers.

Renowned soprano Simona Šaturová and the award-winning Zemlinsky Quartet will perform works by all four major classics of Czech music in arrangements for solo voice and string quartet at the final concert. And these will be some of the most famous melodies: look forward to Mařenčina's warning If I were to do something like that from Smetana's opera The Bartered Bride or perhaps our most famous opera aria Moonlight in the Deep Sky from Dvořák's Rusalka. The evening will be refreshed by a selection from Janáček's Moravian Folk Poetry in Songs and the enchanting coloratura Lamento Ariadne by Bohuslav Martinů. The program will be marked by the movement Youth, Janáček's masterful wind sextet in a convincing arrangement for string quartet.