Reviews

The second New World of Moravian Autumn festival began on Thursday in Brno’s Besední dům. This project, by students of the Faculty of Music at the Janáček Academy of Performing Arts, was primarily originally created for the practical musical programming course and intended to be a one-off event during the Moravian Autumn the year before last. Subsequently, however, more students signed up and started working on a repeat festival. The dramaturgy for New World 2023 was handled by percussionists Adéla Spurná and David Paša, bassoonists Aneta Kubů and Josef Paik, and multimedia composer Martin Janda. Three concerts were prepared for 19, 20 and 21 October for this mini festival.  more

The Restlessness of Icelandic Peace was the name of a concert on 15 October at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Brno, at which conductor Chuhei Iwasaki with the Moravia Brass Band and American artist Adam Wiltzie performed a work by Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (1969-2018). Many of you may know his music from the award-winning films The Theory of Everything and Arrival.  more

The third concert of the Moravian Autumn Festival, held under the auspices of the Ambassadors of Latvia and Lithuania, Elita Kuzma and Laimonas Talat-Kelpša, presented mostly contemporary works by foreign composers on Wednesday 4 October at the Besední dům. The show was directed by the Kremerata Baltica string orchestra, who invited the young talented pianist Onutė Gražinytė to join them, and the whole evening primarily rode on a wave of minimalism. However, during the preparation of the concert, the programme was changed and instead of Geörgy Ligeti's String Quartet No.1 "Métamorphoses nocturnes", works by Jēkabs Jančevskis and Olli Mustonen were performed in their place.  more

The Ensemble Opera Diversa has already presented several compositions by David Matthews (*1943) to Brno audiences, and in most cases these were Czech or even world premieres. This year Matthews’ 80th birthday was celebrated with a performance by the above-mentioned ensemble, or rather its chamber branch Diversa Quartet, headed by dramaturge Jiří Čevela, with a concert on 20 September at the Villa Löw-Beer. The programme, consisting of works by composers closely associated with David Matthews himself, including his own compositions, was preceded by an hour-long discussion in the presence of the composer. Matthews is a British-born composer with long-standing ties to the Brno circle of composers and musicologists. In addition to his participation in the so-called "apartment seminars" in the 1980s, he also is friends with several personalities such as composer, pedagogue and oboist Pavel Zemek Novák (*1957).  more

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 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

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

After the American tour, the Brno Philharmonic, led by chief conductor Dennis Russell Davies, has prepared a mini-festival of three interconnected evenings called Dialogues. Each of these evenings offered a unique dramaturgy with extraordinary repertoire. It was partly linked to the aforementioned tour (e.g. the concert From America to the Czech Republic). The final concert of the trilogy, which took place on Friday 10 March at the Janáček Theatre, offered the home audience monumental orchestral works from the pens of composers Alfred Schnittke and Sergei Rachmaninoff. The entire concert was broadcast live on Czech Radio's Vltava station.  more

The concert with subtitle “Comradeship, Cooperation, Subversion and a Big Battle at the End”, directed by the Brno Contemporary Orchestra (BCO), offered a remarkable programme of contemporary music. It consisted of three Czech and one world premiere, performed at the Besední dům on 27 February under the baton of the tribal conductor Pavel Šnajdr. The choice of the concert hall was anything but random. The Besední dům is celebrating 150 years since its opening this year, and the ensemble held an annual community concert to mark the important anniversary.  more

The Brno City Theatre has launched the Czech premiere of the musical “Matilda” based on the famous book of the same name by Roald Dahl, one of the world’s best-selling authors. Directed by Petr Gazdík, the family show aspires to be a spectacle for the auditorium for all ages. On stage, however, it is the children who win in this demanding production, led by the lead actress Maruška Juráčková. Her performance inspires respect beyond the quantity of text, the quality of her singing, and her command of movement. To be fair, however, the children’s roles are alternated three times, and these performers have undergone the same training.  more