Classical Music

News

Brno Contemporary Orchestra, in collaboration with the Imediatus Biennale festival, will bring together improvised and composed music and dance. The programme includes works by major twentieth-century composers Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Gavin Bryars and Tom Johnson, as well as a piece by Pavel Zlámal composed during the pandemic. Daniel Matej’s multimedia music performance inspired by David Lynch will receive its world premiere. The industrial setting of the former textile dye works at the Mosilana complex will add to the atmosphere. The concert, entitled oBCOování s dUCHEM Alfreda Jarryho, pays tribute to Alfred Jarry, creator of King Ubu and Mother Ubu.  more

Following last year’s inaugural edition, the Rousínov Music Festival returns for a second year, opening today at the Church of St Philip and St James with the local Danielis Choir. Once again, the festival will bring a range of interesting performers to the town and offer audiences several evenings of live music.  more

A special concert evening has been added to the programme of the 10th Janáček Brno 2026 festival. Bass Richard Novák, a legendary figure in Czech opera and song, will celebrate his 95th birthday. To mark the occasion, he’ll perform a selection from his favourite song repertoire at the Reduta Theatre. He’ll be accompanied at the piano by conductor and pianist Ondrej Olos.  more

Janáček Brno 2026 also includes a programme for its youngest audiences, promising playful discovery, creative workshops and family adventures.  more

The piazzetta in front of the Janáček Theatre will come alive with an open-air concert featuring the Janáček Opera of the NdB. You can look forward to soloists, the choir and the orchestra of the Janáček Opera at the NdB, conducted by chief conductor Robert Kružík and his colleagues Ondrej Olos, Jakub Klecker and Dominik Pernica. They will be joined by dancers from the NdB and NdB 2 ballet companies, whilst Pavel Čeněk Vaculík and Anna Glässnerová from the NdB drama company will act as presenters.  more

The Janáček Opera of the National Theatre Brno (NdB) is holding auditions for tenor roles as apprentices (Lehrbuben) in the production of Richard Wagner’s opera The Master-Singers of Nuremberg.  more

Opera Summer 2026 opens in the great courtyard of Špilberk Castle with Aida, starring Csilla Boross in the title role. Three more operas will follow.  more

The celebrations of the 172nd anniversary of Leoš Janáček’s birth will take place this year ahead of schedule – on Tuesday, 23 June 2026, on the small square in front of the Janáček Theatre. The earlier date has been chosen deliberately – on 26 June, Janáček’s most celebrated composition, the Sinfonietta, will be exactly 100 years old. A packed programme offers free entertainment all day long and will mark the launch of an exclusive birthday offer of tickets for the autumn festival.  more

Over a hundred concerts across more than twenty themed stages will fill Brno in early August. The eleventh year of the Brno Music Marathon will transform the city centre into a vibrant space where music spills into streets, clubs, theatres, courtyards, and unusual venues – from the historical water tanks and the Alfa Passage to the “Glass Room” of Villa Tugendhat on Moravian Square.  more

The Brno Philharmonic continues to celebrate its seventieth anniversary, this time looking back to its first season. This week's concerts will feature Vincent d'Indy's Symphony on a French Mountain Air, which was performed in December 1956 under the direction of František Jílek, who later became the chief conductor. Seventy years ago, Jaroslav Sháněl featured as the soloist. This time it will be Igor Ardašev, a native of Brno, whose returns to the home stage are always welcomed by the audience with enthusiasm. In addition, he will play two concerts in a single evening, quite a challenge for a soloist. Besides d'Indy's symphony, he will also play César Franck's Symphonic Variations for Piano and Orchestra.  more

Feature articles

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

The concert by the Brno Contemporary Orchestra in the courtyard of Brno’s Špilberk Castle on Tuesday, 16 June, offered the audience a chance to hear the castle’s carillon in quite a different guise – as a solo musical instrument. Entitled Vězeňské zvony (Prison Bells), the performance alluded not only to the existence and function of the carillon itself but also to the complex history of the castle. The concert featured harpsichordist Daria Savvateeva, soprano Irena Troupová, and Petr Hladík as carillon player.  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 final concert of the 14th season of the Bacha na Mozarta (Watch Out for Mozart) series drew audiences to the Minorite Church of St John on Monday, 8 June, for a programme drawing on the collections of the Kroměříž Music Archive. The evening’s programme brought together specific liturgical forms with the representational demands of the courtly culture of the time. Performed by the SILENTIUM! ensemble under the direction of Tomáš Netopil and with choral preparation by Tereza Válková, the concert featured works by Pavel Josef Vejvanovský, Giovanni Felice Sances, Franz Ignaz Biber, and Philipp Jacob Rittler, some in their modern-day premieres.  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

The cycle of classical music concerts directed by its founder, Barbara Maria Willi, has been an integral part of cultural events in the Moravian capital for twenty-three years. The audience in Brno has already been introduced to a number of  outstanding personalities and ensembles with whom Barbara Maria Willi regularly cooperates. This year's opening concert, traditionally held on Wednesday, 11 February, in the hall of the Convent of the Merciful Brothers with a subtitle Music in Motion offered a combination of the art of the fortepiano with flute played by Sofia Mavrogenidou and accompanied by young dancers Klementýna Anna Špičková and Adam Mišo, choreographed by David Strnad.  more

The final concert of this year’s instalment of the Barbara Maria Willi Presents series offered a unique project that on 4 December brought together two ensembles in the Convent of the Brothers of Mercy:  Cappella Pratensis and Ramillete de Tonos. They showed the audience the many different ways in which one can work with the polyphonic repertoire of the 15th and 16th centuries. The programme intertwined sacred and secular music, and purely vocal, vocal-instrumental and purely instrumental pieces.  more

The rediscovery and digitisation of the Brno polyphonic manuscripts BAM 1 and BAM 2 has opened a new chapter in the study and performance of Renaissance music. At the crossroads of historical research, modern technology, and artistic interpretation stands Past Forward, a cross-border project connecting institutions from the Netherlands, Belgium and the Czech Republic. At its artistic core are two musicians whose approaches complement each other: Tim Braithwaite, artistic director of Cappella Pratensis, and Kateřina Maňáková, lutenist, teacher of early plucked instruments at Janáček Academy of Performing Arts and guarantor of the entire initiative. In this conversation, they discuss working with previously overlooked sources, the challenges of historically informed performance, the promises of international collaboration, and their vision for the future of early-music interpretation.  more

Upcoming events

When You Say Janáček: A Workshop for Schools

09/10/26, 9:00 / Janáčkovo divadlo (Janáček Theatre)

Introduce students to Leoš Janáček in a fun and engaging way. Let them experience Janáček firsthand!

What is Janáček’s story? How did he live and create? Which places in Brno are linked to him, and how did his personal life shape the music he composed? This two-hour educational workshop takes place on the rehearsal stage of the Janáček Theatre and guides students through the milestones of Janáček’s life and work using entertaining activities.

Practical information:

Workshop designed for primary school students (grades 4–6).
Program duration: 2 hours.
Workshop fee: 2,000 CZK for up to 20 participants; an admission fee of 100 CZK applies for each additional person.
Arrival via the Janáček Theatre staff entrance.
Please ensure students wear comfortable clothing, as the program involves sitting on the floor, creative activities, etc.
To book the program, please contact the opera education specialist: Klára Mazlová (mazlova@ndbrno.cz, +420 607 089 755).

Carmen

09/10/26, 19:00 / Janáčkovo divadlo (Janáček Theatre)

The music of Bizet’s *Carmen* embodies both French *esprit* and Spanish passion. After all, who isn’t familiar with its immortal operatic hits—the famous "Habanera" or the Toreador Escamillo’s aria? Yet, what if there is something more beneath this story of love’s fickleness?

It began with a slim novella by the French writer Prosper Mérimée about Don José, a man who—driven by a foolish passion for a wild Gypsy woman—deserted the army to become a smuggler and a murderer. Directed by Tomáš Pilař, this production of *Carmen* returns to the original story, revealing new layers of the characters; here, they are, above all, human beings hailing from vastly different backgrounds. It is not merely a tale of Carmen’s fickle, unbridled love—something the jealous José cannot come to terms with. It is a clash of two worlds: the orderly, tidy realm of José and Micaëla, bound by established rules, and the world of Gypsies and smugglers living day-to-day, free from laws and driven by immediate impulses. Their worlds suddenly collide, but this disparity sparks a tension and conflict that ultimately lead to the total destruction of both. Neither is able to prevent this, as neither is willing—or able—to yield.

BRASS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

10/10/26, 11:00 / Besední dům Concert Hall

Brno Philharmonic
Conductor: Dominik Pernica
Hosts: Kristýna Drášilová and Vítězslav Mikeš
Script and Direction: Kristýna Drášilová

We are already familiar with the orchestra—we know how powerful it can sound and why it needs a conductor to keep it all together. But what actually lies within? What instruments make up its colorful world? Who takes the lead, and who waits patiently for their big moment? And can an orchestral musician simply sit wherever they please?

The Family Subscription series takes you into the inner workings of the musical system known as the orchestra. Together, we will discover how the various sections interact: who sets the tempo, who carries the melody, and who builds tension in the background. We will learn that every instrument plays an indispensable role—and that even silence can be charged with anticipation.

This year, you don’t have to remain mere listeners! We invite you to join forces with our orchestra: young listeners can prepare alongside their teachers, while adults can dust off their own instruments. Let’s experience that unique feeling together—being part of an orchestra.

BRASS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

10/10/26, 11:00 / Besední dům Concert Hall

Brno Philharmonic
Conductor: Dominik Pernica
Hosts: Kristýna Drášilová and Vítězslav Mikeš
Script and Direction: Kristýna Drášilová

We are already familiar with the orchestra—we know how powerful it can sound and why it needs a conductor to keep it all together. But what actually lies within? What instruments make up its colorful world? Who takes the lead, and who patiently waits for their big moment? And can an orchestral musician simply sit wherever they please?

The Family Subscription series takes you deep into the inner workings of the musical system known as the orchestra. Together, we will discover how the various sections interact, who sets the tempo, who carries the melody, and who builds the tension in the background. We will learn that every instrument plays an indispensable role—and that even silence can be charged with anticipation.

This year, you don’t have to remain mere listeners! We invite you to join forces with our orchestra: young listeners can prepare alongside their teachers, while adults should dust off their instruments. Let’s experience that unique feeling together—being part of an orchestra.

BRASS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

10/10/26, 13:30 / Besední dům Concert Hall

Brno Philharmonic
Conductor: Dominik Pernica
Hosts: Kristýna Drášilová and Vítězslav Mikeš
Script and Direction: Kristýna Drášilová

We are already familiar with the orchestra—we know how powerful it can sound and why it needs a conductor to keep it all together. But what actually lies within? What instruments make up its colorful world? Who takes the lead, and who waits patiently for their big moment? And can an orchestral musician simply sit wherever they please?

The Family Subscription series takes you into the inner workings of the musical system known as the orchestra. Together, we will discover how the various sections interact: who sets the tempo, who carries the melody, and who builds tension in the background. We will learn that every instrument plays an indispensable role—and that even silence can be charged with anticipation.

This year, you don’t have to remain mere listeners! We invite you to join forces with our orchestra: young listeners can prepare alongside their teachers, while adults can dust off their own instruments. Let’s experience that unique feeling together—being part of an orchestra.

BRASS IN THE SPOTLIGHT

10/10/26, 13:30 / Besední dům Concert Hall

Brno Philharmonic
Conductor: Dominik Pernica
Hosts: Kristýna Drášilová and Vítězslav Mikeš
Script and Direction: Kristýna Drášilová

We are already familiar with the orchestra—we know how powerful it can sound and why it needs a conductor to keep it all together. But what actually lies within? What instruments make up its colorful world? Who takes the lead, and who waits patiently for their big moment? And can an orchestral musician simply sit wherever they please?

The Family Subscription series takes you into the inner workings of the musical system known as the orchestra. Together, we will discover how the various sections interact, who sets the tempo, who carries the melody, and who builds tension in the background. We will learn that every instrument plays an indispensable role—and that even silence can be charged with anticipation.

And this year, you don’t have to remain mere listeners! We invite you to join forces with our orchestra: young listeners can prepare alongside their teachers, while adults should dust off their instruments. Let’s experience that unique feeling together—being part of an orchestra.

Kristián Šebek and Slawinski Orchestra

11/10/26, 15:00 / Sono Centrum

Kristián Šebek has twice sold out Prague’s Lucerna Hall with his musical project "Můj vzor, ​​Božský Karel" (My Idol, the Divine Karel), and his concerts across the country have been completely sold out for two years running! This year, he is embarking on a tour accompanied by the Slawinski Orchestra, featuring songs you have never heard him perform before and visiting venues where he has never appeared until now!

Audiences can look forward to everything they have come to expect from his concerts. The repertoire will include not only the most famous melodies of his idol, Karel Gott—such as "Stokrát chválím čas," "Lady Karneval," and "Jdi za štěstím"—but also hits by other Czech and international legends like Waldemar Matuška, Frank Sinatra, Jiří Korn, and Elvis Presley. There will also be melodies from films and fairy tales—all perfectly arranged for his orchestra.

Ensemble Opera Diversa: Musical Stocktaking

11/10/26, 19:00 / Divadlo Koráb

As part of its "Musical Inventories" concert series, the ensemble traditionally focuses on the (re)discovery and commissioning of works by Czech composers. This year’s programming is dedicated to compositions that blend the worlds of music and theater. Trio Aperto will perform works by Jiří Teml, Karel Odstrčil, Leoš Faltus, Jana Vöröšová, and Vojtěch Dlask.



Listening Guide: Leoš Janáček's Sinfonietta
with Jakub Hrůša
  more