's not every day one can attend a concert featuring several dozen compositions. Of course, festivals are ideal moments for special experiences. Under the guidance of Ivo Kahánek and the musicologist David Beveridge, audience members and young pianists will experience a marathon concert at which nearly all of Antonín Dvořák's music for solo piano and for piano four-hands will be heard. His piano works will be played in six topically arranged blocks that will encompass everything not already heard at the solo recitals of Iva Kahánek and the Ardašev Piano Duo.

Piano compositions are not in general among Dvořák's best known music - an exception perhaps being the extremely popular Humoresque No. 7 in G Flat Major. Still, he devoted himself to the piano continually, and he also frequently composed at the keyboard. This piano marathon is a special opportunity to get to know Dvořák's pianistic thinking at maximum intensity, magnified by insightful performing.

The patron of the event is the excellent pianist and popular Dvořák Prague Festival guest Ivo Kahánek. He already won over the festival public years ago as the curator of its Chamber Series and again last year performing Dvořák's Piano Concerto, for the recording of which he won a BBC Music Magazine Award. The marathon will also be an opportunity for the festival debuts of the pianists Marek Kozák, Natálie Schwamová, Matouš Zukal, Pavel Zemen, and Kristýna Znamenáčková.

Matouš Zukal (*1998) is a Czech pianist. He began his musical education at the City of Prague Music Grammar School under the guidance of Jitka Němcová. He studied at the Prague Conservatoire in the class of Ivo Kahánek. Matouš is currently furthering his education under the same professor at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

In 2021 he became a laureate of the Prague Spring International Music Competition and was awarded several special prizes, Gideon Klein Foundation Prize and Czech Centers Prize. During his studies he won main prizes at many competitions (The Broumov Key, Virtuosi per musica di pianoforte). Matouš became three times a laureate of the Young Piano of the Prague Conservatoire.

He also became an overall winner of the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation Competition and was awarded a special prize for the best interpretation of Bohuslav Marinů’s work and Zorka and Jaroslav Zich’s prize.

In 2020 Matouš gave a recital at the Dvořákova Praha festival as a part of the marathon of Antonín Dvořák’s complete piano works. In October 2021 he performed Beethoven’s fourth piano concerto at the festival Young Prague with the Czech Chamber Philarmonic Orchestra Pardubice.Matouš also engages in chamber music, in 2019 he became a scholarship holder of Academy of Chamber music under czech cellist Tomáš Jamník. He performed with members of this organization on prestigious festivals such as Styriarte Graz and others.

He is an active participant at masterclasses, and he consults with important pianist abroad such as Sir András Schiff, Boris Giltburg, Francesco Piemontesi, Lukáš Vondráček and others. In 2016, 2018 and 2019 he took part at masterclasses in Bergen, Norway under the guidance of prof. Jiří Hlinka, Leif Ove Andsnes and other eminent pianists. In 2021 Matouš received a scolarship from the International Academy of Music in Liechtenstein and participated in the Intensive Music Week of prof. Milana Chernyavska.

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.