SCHEDULE

Programme
Antonín Dvořák: Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33
Hector Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14

Performing with
Daniil Trifonov piano
Czech Philharmonic

Superlatives follow pianist Daniil Trifonov whenever he appears on stage. His concerto performances with the Czech Philharmonic have made the same impression on Prague audiences as he has made on critics worldwide. Trifonov has appeared twice in recent years with the Czech Philharmonic: in September 2020, he opened the new season with Semyon Bychkov in Shostakovich’s Concerto for Piano, Trumpet, and Strings, and in April 2023, he performed Scriabin’s Piano Concerto with Jakub Hrůša. The concerts of Trifonov were of such artistic excellence that the Czech Philharmonic’s management approached him with the invitation to be its 2024/2025 season Artist-in-Residence, and he accepted!

Artists-in-Residence appear repeatedly during a season. Daniil Trifonov will play at the Rudolfinum as part of the opening season concert, and the same programme will be repeated in Bratislava. In December 2024, he goes on tour with the Czech Philharmonic to New York’s Carnegie Hall and Toronto’s Koerner Hall. For these North American concerts, he will play the Piano Concerto by Antonín Dvořák, chosen to celebrate the 2024 Year of Czech Music. To contrast his grand scale performances with the Orchestra, Trifonov will also give a solo piano recital on 29 September at the Rudolfinum.

The Czech Philharmonic’s Chief Conductor is naturally a part of the opening concerts as well. Semyon Bychkov has chosen a work he has not yet performed with his Orchestra, although it is an important part of his repertoire, and is both very admired and popular. “For the artist, his beloved herself becomes a melody, like an idée fixe that he encounters again and again and hears everywhere,” wrote Hector Berlioz in the introduction to his Symphonie fantastique.

The subtitle An Episode from the Life of an Artist is meant seriously. The youthful Berlioz was inspired by (if not obsessed with) the actress Harriet Smithson who played all the major Shakespearean roles in London, and when she made guest appearances in Paris in 1827, she completely captivated the composer’s heart. Although not all love stories end the way they do in romantic novels, Smithson ultimately became Berlioz’s wife and together, they had a son.

The beginning of Berlioz and Smithson’s relationship perfectly reflects the Romantic period’s ideas about love, which today seem rather frightening. Berlioz had in fact never seen Smithson anywhere other than on stage, but that did not stop him from sending her reams of letters. He moved into a flat where he could observe her returning home, and he would watch her until she went to sleep. The actress ignored his attempts at seduction until a mutual acquaintance invited her to a concert which featured the continuation to the Symphonie fantastique: a composition titled Lélio. Smithson realised that the symphony and its “sequel” were about her, and the rest is history as they say at least until the Shakespearean actress began to feel jealous about her husband’s success, and the fact that his attention had begun to turn towards a certain French opera singer… But why let that stop us from enjoying the Symphonie fantastique?

Programme
Antonín Dvořák: Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33
Hector Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14

Performing with
Daniil Trifonov piano
Czech Philharmonic

Superlatives follow pianist Daniil Trifonov whenever he appears on stage. His concerto performances with the Czech Philharmonic have made the same impression on Prague audiences as he has made on critics worldwide. Trifonov has appeared twice in recent years with the Czech Philharmonic: in September 2020, he opened the new season with Semyon Bychkov in Shostakovich’s Concerto for Piano, Trumpet, and Strings, and in April 2023, he performed Scriabin’s Piano Concerto with Jakub Hrůša. The concerts of Trifonov were of such artistic excellence that the Czech Philharmonic’s management approached him with the invitation to be its 2024/2025 season Artist-in-Residence, and he accepted!

Artists-in-Residence appear repeatedly during a season. Daniil Trifonov will play at the Rudolfinum as part of the opening season concert, and the same programme will be repeated in Bratislava. In December 2024, he goes on tour with the Czech Philharmonic to New York’s Carnegie Hall and Toronto’s Koerner Hall. For these North American concerts, he will play the Piano Concerto by Antonín Dvořák, chosen to celebrate the 2024 Year of Czech Music. To contrast his grand scale performances with the Orchestra, Trifonov will also give a solo piano recital on 29 September at the Rudolfinum.

The Czech Philharmonic’s Chief Conductor is naturally a part of the opening concerts as well. Semyon Bychkov has chosen a work he has not yet performed with his Orchestra, although it is an important part of his repertoire, and is both very admired and popular. “For the artist, his beloved herself becomes a melody, like an idée fixe that he encounters again and again and hears everywhere,” wrote Hector Berlioz in the introduction to his Symphonie fantastique.

The subtitle An Episode from the Life of an Artist is meant seriously. The youthful Berlioz was inspired by (if not obsessed with) the actress Harriet Smithson who played all the major Shakespearean roles in London, and when she made guest appearances in Paris in 1827, she completely captivated the composer’s heart. Although not all love stories end the way they do in romantic novels, Smithson ultimately became Berlioz’s wife and together, they had a son.

The beginning of Berlioz and Smithson’s relationship perfectly reflects the Romantic period’s ideas about love, which today seem rather frightening. Berlioz had in fact never seen Smithson anywhere other than on stage, but that did not stop him from sending her reams of letters. He moved into a flat where he could observe her returning home, and he would watch her until she went to sleep. The actress ignored his attempts at seduction until a mutual acquaintance invited her to a concert which featured the continuation to the Symphonie fantastique: a composition titled Lélio. Smithson realised that the symphony and its “sequel” were about her, and the rest is history as they say at least until the Shakespearean actress began to feel jealous about her husband’s success, and the fact that his attention had begun to turn towards a certain French opera singer… But why let that stop us from enjoying the Symphonie fantastique?

Programme
Antonín Dvořák: Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33
Hector Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14

Performing with
Daniil Trifonov piano
Czech Philharmonic

Superlatives follow pianist Daniil Trifonov whenever he appears on stage. His concerto performances with the Czech Philharmonic have made the same impression on Prague audiences as he has made on critics worldwide. Trifonov has appeared twice in recent years with the Czech Philharmonic: in September 2020, he opened the new season with Semyon Bychkov in Shostakovich’s Concerto for Piano, Trumpet, and Strings, and in April 2023, he performed Scriabin’s Piano Concerto with Jakub Hrůša. The concerts of Trifonov were of such artistic excellence that the Czech Philharmonic’s management approached him with the invitation to be its 2024/2025 season Artist-in-Residence, and he accepted!

Artists-in-Residence appear repeatedly during a season. Daniil Trifonov will play at the Rudolfinum as part of the opening season concert, and the same programme will be repeated in Bratislava. In December 2024, he goes on tour with the Czech Philharmonic to New York’s Carnegie Hall and Toronto’s Koerner Hall. For these North American concerts, he will play the Piano Concerto by Antonín Dvořák, chosen to celebrate the 2024 Year of Czech Music. To contrast his grand scale performances with the Orchestra, Trifonov will also give a solo piano recital on 29 September at the Rudolfinum.

The Czech Philharmonic’s Chief Conductor is naturally a part of the opening concerts as well. Semyon Bychkov has chosen a work he has not yet performed with his Orchestra, although it is an important part of his repertoire, and is both very admired and popular. “For the artist, his beloved herself becomes a melody, like an idée fixe that he encounters again and again and hears everywhere,” wrote Hector Berlioz in the introduction to his Symphonie fantastique.

The subtitle An Episode from the Life of an Artist is meant seriously. The youthful Berlioz was inspired by (if not obsessed with) the actress Harriet Smithson who played all the major Shakespearean roles in London, and when she made guest appearances in Paris in 1827, she completely captivated the composer’s heart. Although not all love stories end the way they do in romantic novels, Smithson ultimately became Berlioz’s wife and together, they had a son.

The beginning of Berlioz and Smithson’s relationship perfectly reflects the Romantic period’s ideas about love, which today seem rather frightening. Berlioz had in fact never seen Smithson anywhere other than on stage, but that did not stop him from sending her reams of letters. He moved into a flat where he could observe her returning home, and he would watch her until she went to sleep. The actress ignored his attempts at seduction until a mutual acquaintance invited her to a concert which featured the continuation to the Symphonie fantastique: a composition titled Lélio. Smithson realised that the symphony and its “sequel” were about her, and the rest is history as they say at least until the Shakespearean actress began to feel jealous about her husband’s success, and the fact that his attention had begun to turn towards a certain French opera singer… But why let that stop us from enjoying the Symphonie fantastique?

Programme
Johannes Brahms (arr. Detlev Glanert): Four Serious Songs, Op. 121, arranged for baritone and orchestra (2004)
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73

Performing with
Christian Immler, bass-baritone
Czech Philharmonic

Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 which premiered in 1877, dates from the period when the composer was firmly establishing himself as a prominent figure of Viennese musical life. Brahms described the work as “pastoral”, certainly not without reference to the Sixth Symphony of his role model: Ludwig van Beethoven, who was not only a great source of inspiration for Brahms but also a figure whose legacy long challenged his confidence in his own compositions. The work’s mood comes across as cheerful, and even the sadder moments feel comforting. Nonetheless, Brahms wrote to his publisher that his symphony “is so melancholy that you will not be able to bear it. I have never written anything so sad, and the score must come out in mourning.” This of course might have been meant ironically.

The first movement’s broadly arched main theme is one of Brahms’s most appealing melodies. The second movement continues in a similar vein while turning inwards even further. The scherzo, in the character of a classical minuet, is an inventive and artisanal evocation of serenade-like lightness. The final movement departs from the overall mood of calm, but even here one finds moments of repose. This formally balanced symphony is captivating with its succinct rhythms and orchestration in which Brahms makes use of his favourite colours in the French horns, luminous strings, and woodwinds.
Brahms’s Four Serious Songs were written near the end of his life when he was grieving the death of his friend Clara Schumann. He had also begun to feel the effects of an illness that would soon prove to be fatal. At this difficult time, he turned to Luther’s German translation of the Bible, and as he had already done in his German Requiem, focused more on passages that are existential rather than explicitly religious. The first three songs explore the finite and transient nature of human life, and the last offers listeners a fuller view of humankind’s fate.

In these performances, the songs will be heard in an orchestral arrangement by Detlev Glanert who has framed them with four preludes and postludes, creating a continuous musical flow to enhance the original work. The soloist is Christian Immler who returns to Prague following the world premiere of Glanert’s Prague Symphony with the Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov in 2022.

Programme
Johannes Brahms (arr. Detlev Glanert): Four Serious Songs, Op. 121, arranged for baritone and orchestra (2004)
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73

Performing with
Christian Immler, bass-baritone
Czech Philharmonic

Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 which premiered in 1877, dates from the period when the composer was firmly establishing himself as a prominent figure of Viennese musical life. Brahms described the work as “pastoral”, certainly not without reference to the Sixth Symphony of his role model: Ludwig van Beethoven, who was not only a great source of inspiration for Brahms but also a figure whose legacy long challenged his confidence in his own compositions. The work’s mood comes across as cheerful, and even the sadder moments feel comforting. Nonetheless, Brahms wrote to his publisher that his symphony “is so melancholy that you will not be able to bear it. I have never written anything so sad, and the score must come out in mourning.” This of course might have been meant ironically.

The first movement’s broadly arched main theme is one of Brahms’s most appealing melodies. The second movement continues in a similar vein while turning inwards even further. The scherzo, in the character of a classical minuet, is an inventive and artisanal evocation of serenade-like lightness. The final movement departs from the overall mood of calm, but even here one finds moments of repose. This formally balanced symphony is captivating with its succinct rhythms and orchestration in which Brahms makes use of his favourite colours in the French horns, luminous strings, and woodwinds.
Brahms’s Four Serious Songs were written near the end of his life when he was grieving the death of his friend Clara Schumann. He had also begun to feel the effects of an illness that would soon prove to be fatal. At this difficult time, he turned to Luther’s German translation of the Bible, and as he had already done in his German Requiem, focused more on passages that are existential rather than explicitly religious. The first three songs explore the finite and transient nature of human life, and the last offers listeners a fuller view of humankind’s fate.

In these performances, the songs will be heard in an orchestral arrangement by Detlev Glanert who has framed them with four preludes and postludes, creating a continuous musical flow to enhance the original work. The soloist is Christian Immler who returns to Prague following the world premiere of Glanert’s Prague Symphony with the Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov in 2022.

Programme
Johannes Brahms (arr. Detlev Glanert): Four Serious Songs, Op. 121, arranged for baritone and orchestra (2004)
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73

Performing with
Christian Immler, bass-baritone
Czech Philharmonic

Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 which premiered in 1877, dates from the period when the composer was firmly establishing himself as a prominent figure of Viennese musical life. Brahms described the work as “pastoral”, certainly not without reference to the Sixth Symphony of his role model: Ludwig van Beethoven, who was not only a great source of inspiration for Brahms but also a figure whose legacy long challenged his confidence in his own compositions. The work’s mood comes across as cheerful, and even the sadder moments feel comforting. Nonetheless, Brahms wrote to his publisher that his symphony “is so melancholy that you will not be able to bear it. I have never written anything so sad, and the score must come out in mourning.” This of course might have been meant ironically.

The first movement’s broadly arched main theme is one of Brahms’s most appealing melodies. The second movement continues in a similar vein while turning inwards even further. The scherzo, in the character of a classical minuet, is an inventive and artisanal evocation of serenade-like lightness. The final movement departs from the overall mood of calm, but even here one finds moments of repose. This formally balanced symphony is captivating with its succinct rhythms and orchestration in which Brahms makes use of his favourite colours in the French horns, luminous strings, and woodwinds.
Brahms’s Four Serious Songs were written near the end of his life when he was grieving the death of his friend Clara Schumann. He had also begun to feel the effects of an illness that would soon prove to be fatal. At this difficult time, he turned to Luther’s German translation of the Bible, and as he had already done in his German Requiem, focused more on passages that are existential rather than explicitly religious. The first three songs explore the finite and transient nature of human life, and the last offers listeners a fuller view of humankind’s fate.

In these performances, the songs will be heard in an orchestral arrangement by Detlev Glanert who has framed them with four preludes and postludes, creating a continuous musical flow to enhance the original work. The soloist is Christian Immler who returns to Prague following the world premiere of Glanert’s Prague Symphony with the Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov in 2022.

Programme
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K 503
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor

Performing with
Kristian Bezuidenhout piano
Czech Philharmonic

If a Mahler symphony opens with a trumpet solo, one can be sure that one is listening to the Fifth. And this is not the only well-known motif from this beautiful work which has etched itself in the memories of audiences, including, of course, through its use by the great Italian director Luchino Visconti in his Death in Venice, a filmic adaptation of Thomas Mann’s existentialist novel of the same name.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor has continued to inspire and thrill since its premiere 120 years ago in Cologne, so it is no surprise that the Prague public gave an exceptionally enthusiastic welcome to Semyon Bychkov’s carefully prepared performances in 2021. As the British music critic Norman Lebrecht said of the Orchestra’s recording of the Fifth with its Chief Conductor, “Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic are setting the pace for Mahler on record in this decade… I can find no flaw in this production. It is as gripping a Mahler Fifth as you will hear anywhere and that burnished Czech sound will linger long in the ear. The orchestra is immeasurably more virtuosic these days than it was in its previous Mahler cycle, nearly half a century ago with Vaclav Neumann, yet its ethos in Mahler remains inimitable.”

In the accompanying performances of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, Australian pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout deserves no less attention. A world traveller based in London, he is a respected figure in the field of historically informed music making focusing on the era preceding Romanticism which reached its zenith with Mahler. To be more precise, Bezuidenhout prefers to describe his approach as “historically inspired”, meaning that he is not striving for historical “purism”, but for authenticity in terms of his own artistic conception of a work. It is an approach for which he has already received much acclaim including for his biggest recording project to date – Mozart’s complete piano music for Harmonia Mundi – which has won several international awards.

Programme
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K 503
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor

Performing with
Kristian Bezuidenhout piano
Czech Philharmonic

If a Mahler symphony opens with a trumpet solo, one can be sure that one is listening to the Fifth. And this is not the only well-known motif from this beautiful work which has etched itself in the memories of audiences, including, of course, through its use by the great Italian director Luchino Visconti in his Death in Venice, a filmic adaptation of Thomas Mann’s existentialist novel of the same name.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor has continued to inspire and thrill since its premiere 120 years ago in Cologne, so it is no surprise that the Prague public gave an exceptionally enthusiastic welcome to Semyon Bychkov’s carefully prepared performances in 2021. As the British music critic Norman Lebrecht said of the Orchestra’s recording of the Fifth with its Chief Conductor, “Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic are setting the pace for Mahler on record in this decade… I can find no flaw in this production. It is as gripping a Mahler Fifth as you will hear anywhere and that burnished Czech sound will linger long in the ear. The orchestra is immeasurably more virtuosic these days than it was in its previous Mahler cycle, nearly half a century ago with Vaclav Neumann, yet its ethos in Mahler remains inimitable.”

In the accompanying performances of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, Australian pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout deserves no less attention. A world traveller based in London, he is a respected figure in the field of historically informed music making focusing on the era preceding Romanticism which reached its zenith with Mahler. To be more precise, Bezuidenhout prefers to describe his approach as “historically inspired”, meaning that he is not striving for historical “purism”, but for authenticity in terms of his own artistic conception of a work. It is an approach for which he has already received much acclaim including for his biggest recording project to date – Mozart’s complete piano music for Harmonia Mundi – which has won several international awards.

Programme
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K 503
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor

Performing with
Kristian Bezuidenhout piano
Czech Philharmonic

If a Mahler symphony opens with a trumpet solo, one can be sure that one is listening to the Fifth. And this is not the only well-known motif from this beautiful work which has etched itself in the memories of audiences, including, of course, through its use by the great Italian director Luchino Visconti in his Death in Venice, a filmic adaptation of Thomas Mann’s existentialist novel of the same name.

Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor has continued to inspire and thrill since its premiere 120 years ago in Cologne, so it is no surprise that the Prague public gave an exceptionally enthusiastic welcome to Semyon Bychkov’s carefully prepared performances in 2021. As the British music critic Norman Lebrecht said of the Orchestra’s recording of the Fifth with its Chief Conductor, “Semyon Bychkov and the Czech Philharmonic are setting the pace for Mahler on record in this decade… I can find no flaw in this production. It is as gripping a Mahler Fifth as you will hear anywhere and that burnished Czech sound will linger long in the ear. The orchestra is immeasurably more virtuosic these days than it was in its previous Mahler cycle, nearly half a century ago with Vaclav Neumann, yet its ethos in Mahler remains inimitable.”

In the accompanying performances of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, Australian pianist Kristian Bezuidenhout deserves no less attention. A world traveller based in London, he is a respected figure in the field of historically informed music making focusing on the era preceding Romanticism which reached its zenith with Mahler. To be more precise, Bezuidenhout prefers to describe his approach as “historically inspired”, meaning that he is not striving for historical “purism”, but for authenticity in terms of his own artistic conception of a work. It is an approach for which he has already received much acclaim including for his biggest recording project to date – Mozart’s complete piano music for Harmonia Mundi – which has won several international awards.

Programme
Antonín Dvořák: Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104
Bedřich Smetana: Vyšehrad, Vltava, Šárka from the cycle of symphonic poems Má vlast

Performing with
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Czech Philharmonic

Yo-Yo Ma joins the illustrious Czech Philharmonic as part of the worldwide Year of Czech Music celebration. Together they perform Dvořák’s towering final concerto—a masterpiece for which these artists are individually renowned. From its virtuosic cello passages and exquisite orchestration to its energetic, yet elegiac tone, it’s a thoroughly captivating piece to hear in concert. Semyon Bychkov also leads the orchestra in selections from Má Vlast (My Country), a singular symphonic cycle by Smetana, the 19th-century composer widely known as the “father of Czech music.”

Programme
Antonín Dvořák: Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor

Performing with
Gil Shaham, violin
Czech Philharmonic

In each of its three concerts this week, the inimitable Czech Philharmonic pairs an orchestral masterwork with one of Dvořák’s concertos, each featuring a superstar soloist. Tonight, the soloist is violin icon Gil Shaham, who performs the vibrant, Czech folk–infused Violin Concerto. Mahler’s Fifth Symphony follows, giving audiences a chance to experience the orchestra’s acclaimed interpretation under conductor Semyon Bychkov. Their 2022 recording of the Fifth was named Best Classical Record of 2022 by London’s The Times, which praised their “fine balance in this visionary work, a musical universe of dreams and prophecies in which Bychkov matches intelligent pacing with great-hearted warmth and sonic opulence with textural clarity.”

Programme
Antonín Dvořák: Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33
Leoš Janáček: Glagolitic Mass, cantata for vocal soloists, choir, orchestra and organ to an Old Church Slavonic text

Performing with
Daniil Trifonov piano

Lyubov Petrova soprano
Lucie Hilscherová mezzo-soprano
Aleš Briscein tenor
David Leigh bass
Daniela Valtová Kosinová organ

Prague Philharmonic Choir
Lukáš Vasilek choirmaster

Czech Philharmonic

Once per decade, music lovers worldwide are treated to a major musical event: the Year of Czech Music. Carnegie Hall celebrates the festival’s 100th anniversary with an extraordinary series of concerts—including three performances by the Czech Philharmonic with superstar guests. Tonight, for its final performance, the orchestra welcomes beloved pianist Daniil Trifonov to perform Dvořák’s imaginative, sole Piano Concerto. The great Prague Philharmonic Choir and soloists then fill the Hall with Janáček’s monumental Glagolitic Mass, a “festive, life-affirming, pantheistic” work that the composer wrote to celebrate the spirit of the Czech nation.

Programme
Antonín Dvořák: Piano Concerto in G minor, Op. 33
Bedřich Smetana: Vyšehrad, Vltava, Šárka from the cycle of symphonic poems Má vlast

Performing with
Daniil Trifonov piano
Czech Philharmonic

For over a century, the Czech Philharmonic is one of the great orchestras of Europe and has represented the pinnacle of Czech cultural achievement. In 1896, Antonín Dvořák conducted the orchestra’s debut performance at the Rudolfinum, still home to the orchestra’s Prague concerts. Led by renowned conductor Semyon Bychkov, the orchestra will perform two evenings of works by Dvořák, Smetana, and Mahler for their Koerner hall debuts.

Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Czech Philharmonic, Semyon Bychkov’s season started in Prague with the official concert to mark the Czech Republic’s Presidency of the EU and continued at the Dvořák Prague International Music Festival with concert performances of Dvořák’s Rusalka. Now in his sixth season, Semyon Bychkov’s relationship with the Orchestra has become noticeably deeper with extraordinary performances of the great Czech masters running in parallel with a much-acclaimed Mahler cycle, and memorable performances of Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Strauss, Schumann, and Beethoven.

Grammy Award-winning pianist Daniil Trifonov has made a spectacular ascent of the classical music world, as a solo artist, champion of the concerto repertoire, chamber and vocal collaborator, and composer. Combining consummate technique with rare sensitivity and depth, his performances are a perpetual source of awe. He has been described as “the most astounding pianist of our age” (The Times).

Programme
Antonín Dvořák: Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor

Performing with
Jan Mráček, violin
Czech Philharmonic

For over a century, the Czech Philharmonic is one of the great orchestras of Europe and has represented the pinnacle of Czech cultural achievement. In 1896, Antonín Dvořák conducted the orchestra’s debut performance at the Rudolfinum, still home to the orchestra’s Prague concerts. Led by renowned conductor Semyon Bychkov, the orchestra will perform two evenings of works by Dvořák, Smetana, and Mahler for their Koerner hall debuts.

Chief Conductor and Music Director of the Czech Philharmonic, Semyon Bychkov’s season started in Prague with the official concert to mark the Czech Republic’s Presidency of the EU and continued at the Dvořák Prague International Music Festival with concert performances of Dvořák’s Rusalka. Now in his sixth season, Semyon Bychkov’s relationship with the Orchestra has become noticeably deeper with extraordinary performances of the great Czech masters running in parallel with a much-acclaimed Mahler cycle, and memorable performances of Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Strauss, Schumann, and Beethoven.

Czech violinist Jan Mráček began studying violin at the age of five and has performed as a soloist with the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra and Romanian Radio Symphony, both under Sascha Goetzel, Lappeenranta City Orchestra (Finland), Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Prague Symphony Orchestra (FOK), Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, and almost all Czech regional orchestras. “Mráček, gifted with phenomenal musicality, is able to give the content of every single phrase, every motif.” (Harmony Magazine)