This year’s traditional festival prelude, On the Trail of Antonín Dvořák, will take us to Maleč, a chateau near Chotěboř. In the 19th century, this lovely neo-Renaissance Empire structure served for 40 years as the summer home of the illustrious Czech patriot, František Ladislav Rieger, and of his father-in-law, František Palacký, during the last years of his life. Rieger’s daughter Marie Červinková-Reigrová, one of the most educated Czech women of her day, was also present at the chateau. Much of her literary activity consisted of writing opera libretti, two of which – The Jacobin and Dmitrij – were set to music by none other than Antonín Dvořák. While working on those operas, the composer regularly engaged in correspondence with Červinková-Reigrová, and he was a guest at Maleč on numerous occasions. Lovely recollections of these visits have been preserved from the diaries of the librettist and correspondence from the period. Festival visitors to the chateau and adjacent garden will have the chance to take in the atmosphere of an authentic environment where many important figures of Bohemia’s public and cultural life from the latter half of the 19th century spent time, and they will get to enjoy musical works by Dvořák, played in places that contributed significantly to their creation. In accordance with tradition, festival musicologist Dr David Beveridge will supplement the programme with his expert commentary. After the programme, those who are interested may visit an exhibition titled "A Memorial to F. L. Rieger and F. Palacký".

The Prague Philharmonic Choir was founded in 1935 by choirmaster and teacher Jan Kühn. Entering its 90th season, it is the oldest Czech professional choir. However, the choir has garnered international acclaim as a prominent ensemble as well. Recently, it has received particular recognition for its interpretation of its oratorio and cantata repertoire. Since 2007, the choir has been led by principal choirmaster and artistic director Lukáš Vasilek. Lukáš Kozubík serves as the second choirmaster.

Under the direction of Lukáš Vasilek, the choir has established itself as a highly respected partner of major orchestras. On the domestic scene, it has long collaborated primarily with the Czech Philharmonic and, in choral concerts, with the PKF – Prague Philharmonia. Internationally, its musical partners include the Berlin and Essen Philharmonics, the Vienna Symphony, the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra Hamburg, and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

The Prague Philharmonic Choir has gained valuable experience from its work with distinguished conductors, which recently has included Semyon Bychkov, Jakub Hrůša, Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Harding, Zubin Mehta, and Christoph Eschenbach. It also regularly participates in renowned music festivals such as Smetana’s Litomyšl, Prague Spring, Dvořák Prague and Prague Sounds. In recent years, the choir has played an active role on the international stage, serving as the resident choir for the Bregenzer Festspiele opera festival.

This season, the choir will be presenting three exclusive choral concerts. They were curated with a main focus on demanding and lesser-known choral pieces, such as a cappella or with instrumental accompaniment. Traditionally, it performs at concerts organised by Prague-based orchestras, but has been known to also visit other venues such as Ostrava. Internationally, the choir has performed in cities such as Dresden, Baden-Baden, Hamburg, and Bregenz.

In addition to its regular concert activities, the Prague Philharmonic Choir is engaged in educational projects. For young audiences, it has prepared a series of educational concerts specifically tailored for both schools and families with children. Their programme places strong emphasis on ensuring an enjoyable and actively engaging experience for children. Organised for voice students, the Prague Philharmonic Choir Academy offers a unique platform for young singers to engage in professional ensemble performances, participate in major musical projects, and gain experience working with leading artists.

The choir’s vocal qualities are evidenced, among other things, by its rich archive of recordings, which continues to grow with each season. The discography includes albums released by various record labels such as Pentatone, Decca Classics, Sony Classical, and Supraphon. The Prague Philharmonic Choir has also garnered recognition for its recording activities, receiving awards from the British Gramophone magazine and BBC Music Magazine, as well as the prestigious Diapason d’Or de l’Annèe award. The first gramophone recording, conducted by Václav Talich in 1952, featured Dvořák’s oratorio Stabat Mater; the most recent CDs, released in 2023, includes Mahler’s Symphony No.2 with the Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov and the choir’s own album entitled Stravinsky, Janáček, Bartók: Village Stories.

The Prague Philharmonic Choir received the 2018 Classic Prague Award for Best Vocal Concert, the Czech Television Classics of the Year Award, and in 2022 the Antonín Dvořák Award for outstanding artistic merit, promotion, and popularisation of Czech music.

source: Prague Philharmonic Choir

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From childhood, the pianist, singer, and teacher Ahmad Hedar sang in the Pueri Gaudentes choir. He completed his piano studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague in the studios of Martin Kasík and František Malý. He has taken part in many masterclasses, including one led by Paul Badura-Skoda. He has worked as an opera coach with leading singers of the younger generation, including Petr Nekoranec, Kateřina Kněžíková, and Roman Hoza as well as with opera legends like Gabriela Beňačková and Eva Randová. In 2016 he took the prize for best piano accompaniment at the Antonín Dvořák International Singing Competition in Karlovy Vary. He is a member of Run OpeRun, which brings opera to a young public and to the general public at unusual venues. With them, he has rehearsed productions of The Magic Flute, Le nozze di Figrao, Rusalka, and La voix humaine. In 2019 he earned a fellowship from the prestigious Bayreuther Festspiele. In addition to playing piano, he also devotes himself to both operatic and non-classical singing. Since 2019 he has been teaching at the Jan Deyl Conservatory.

Kateřina Ochmanová has won several prizes in various categories at several national competitions for students at elementary performing arts schools. At the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, she graduated from Ivo Kahánek’s piano studio. She has taken part in many masterclasses and was selected as a participant at a masterclass in Leipzig with Angela Hewitt, known around the globe for her interpretations of the music of J.S. Bach. She spent a year studying at the Dresden College of Music in the studio of Arkadi Zenzipér under the Erasmus programme. She has also studied chamber music both abroad (in Paris and Vienna) and at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She has won several prizes for collaborations at the piano, and together with Martin Smutný she won second prize and a special prize for the best performance of a work by Antonín Dvořák at the International Schubert Competition for Piano Duos in Jesenik. She has appeared as a soloist with orchestras, including the Czech Chamber Philharmonic in Pardubice and the Janáček Chamber Orchestra. She is a founding member of the ensemble Quasi Trio, which appears regularly on Czech concert stages.

Soprano Tereza Hořejšová is a graduate of the Pardubice Conservatory and of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. She is a laureate of several international competitions and twice was a winner of the Antonín Dvořák Competition in Karlovy Vary in the Junior and Song categories. She was also a successful participant at the Éva Marton International Singing Competition in Budapest and the Ferruccio Tagliavini Competition in Deutschlandsberg. For a year, she studied in Milan at the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatoire, where she introduced herself in the contemporary opera Valentina by Arturs Maskats, in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, and in Verdi’s La traviata. In the last two years, she has been touring Germany and Switzerland regularly as the First Lady (The Magic Flute) and Anna (Nabucco). She has made guest appearances in Liberec in the role of Ciboletta (Night in Venice) and the Second Wood Sprite (Rusalka). She works regularly as a freelance artist with the Prague Philharmonic Choir, and besides singing, she devotes herself to playing piano and working as an opera coach. She has a great passion for recitals with piano, especially in the Czech and foreign song literature.

From 2006 to 2010 Raman Hasymau studied choral conducting at the Minsk Conservatoire, then he spent four years studying classical singing at the Prague Conservatoire. Since 2018 he has been furthering his education at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he is studying opera singing. He worked first as a choral singer and later as a soloist with the Belarusian Philharmonic. As a student at the Prague Conservatoire, he sang the role of Vulcan in Jean-Baptiste Lully’s opera Psyché and the role of Miloš in the opera The Black Lake by Josef Richard Rozkošný, then during his studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague he appeared as Jeník in Smetana’s Bartered Bride and as Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. At the Olomouc Baroque Festival he sang the role of General Parmenion in Tomáš Hanzlík’s opera Lacrimae Alexandri Magni (The Tears of Alexander the Great), and this year he toured Germany as Tamino in Mozart’s Magic Flute.

Maleč Chateau is located near Chotěboř, northeast of Havlíčkův Brod. It was built in 1602 by Jan Beneda von Nečtiny as a late-Renaissance chateau at the site of what had originally been a medieval fortress. It was rebuilt in its present Neoclassical form after 1827. The chateau is surrounded by an English garden with a number of rare tree species and a pond. It has been open to the public since 2018, and it features a permanent exhibition presenting the lives and work of two important figures of 19th-century Czech history: František Ladislav Rieger and František Palacký. For more information, go to www.zamekmalec.cz.