At the elite levels of music competitions there are no real losers. Simply getting to compete in the later rounds is proof of a musician’s excellence. The semi-finalists for chamber music and solo performance at the Concertino Praga – Antonín Dvořák International Radio Competition for young musicians – will be presenting themselves at an afternoon concert in the Rudolfinum’s Suk Hall. These performances at this Talent Stage event will demonstrate that we need not worry about any shortfall in young, talented, and diligent musicians.

The performers will be announced during May, after the publication of the results of the 1st round of the competition.

Seventeen-year-old Kristóf Havasi comes from the Hungarian town of Bonyhád. He began devoting himself to music at the age of eight: his first instrument was the recorder and he then spent two years playing the clarinet before following in his father’s footsteps and playing the saxophone. He began his music studies at the music school in Bonyhád under the tutelage of Jaroszlav Seleljo. During his studies, he received a number of first prizes in regional competitions, while he also received the first prize and a special prize at the National Saxophone Competition in 2016. He also received his first silver prizes at the Femus international competitions in 2017 and 2018, where he had the opportunity to play with the Szekszárd String Orchestra. In 2018, he was accepted into the Bartók Conservatory in Budapest and he is currently studying under the tutelage of Erzsébet Seleljo. During his studies, he won the first gold place in the Femus competition and third place at the seventh National Saxophone Competition in 2019.

The young clarinettist Barbora Lisická was introduced to music at an early age by her father when she started playing the recorder aged four. She has been playing the clarinet since the age of ten, initially in Jitka Svobodová’s class at the Frýdek-Místek Arts Primary School and subsequently at the Music Grammar School in Prague under Professor Milan Polák, whose student she still is today.
In 2017, she received the 1st prize in the nationwide round of the Arts Primary School Competition in Prague. A year later, this was followed by victory in the international performance competition held upon the occasion of the International Festival of Slavic Music, where she also won at the young soloists’ concert which was broadcast on the Vltava station at Czech Radio. In 2019, she won 3rd place in the Pro Bohemia competition. In the same year, she participated in the Young Talents project with the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, where she both played as an orchestra member and won the auditions to perform as a soloist with it.
She regularly takes part in clarinet courses held by Professor Ludmila Peterková and also in Ostrava clarinet courses led by Igor Františák and Karel Dohnal.

The violinist Lora Markova and violoncellist Syon Najman created the Lora and Syon Duo after years of solo performing thanks to their common interest in chamber music. Lora Markova started playing the violin as a five-year-old in Blagorodna Taneva’s class at the National Music School in Sofia. She is a laureate from competitions in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Italy, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Belgium. In 2019, she received the 2nd prize at the Concertino Praga and one year later the 1st prize at the Leonid Kogan Competition. She has performed at concerts in Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, Greece and the USA. Syon Najman began learning to play the violoncello under Daniela Cherpoková at the age of six. He has performed at festivals in Belgium, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Bulgaria. He has won a number of prizes at international competitions: the 2nd prize at the Davidov Competition (2018), the 2nd prize with the Codam String Quartet (2018) and the 1st prize in the Violoncello category at the 2019 Concertino Praga. Both performers have currently been nominated for Young Musician of the Year by Bulgarian National Radio.

Ensemble Symbolique is a grouping of four young musicians studying in Prague. The ensemble includes three students from one year at the Grammar School and Music School of the Capital City Prague, namely the oboist Františka Matoušková, the flautist Theodora Kopecká and the pianist Pavol Praženica. In February of this year, they were joined by the clarinettist Natálie Hrdová from the Prague Conservatory. They are playing in this line-up for the first time. They prepared the competition program under the tutelage of Professor Václav Kunt. They take their inspiration from French music which has a rich repertoire for chamber wind ensembles and they would like to prepare some works with a larger instrumentation in the future. They see playing in a chamber ensemble as a way to enrich their solo careers and also an excellent experience.

Suk Hall is the newest hall in the Neo-Renaissance Rudolfinum. It was created from 1940 to 1942 during modifications of the adjacent Dvořák Hall, as a smaller concert hall. In designing the interior decor architects Antonín Engel and Bohumír Kozák took inspiration from the original style of the Rudolfinum’s architects Josef Zítek and Josef Schulz, thus Suk Hall fits perfectly into the original composition of the building. During the most recent modifications in 2015, according to a design by architect Petr Hrůša, the acoustics of the hall and its connection to the Rudolfinum’s atrium were improved while respecting the historical value of these premises, protected as a historical landmark. Suk Hall has a new grand piano and continues to be intended mainly for performances of chamber music.