Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava & Jan Kučera, Stanislav Vavřínek
Biography Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava & Jan Kučera, Stanislav Vavřínek
Jan Kučera
The conductor, composer, and pianist Jan Kučera is one of the most versatile Czech artists. At the National Theatre in Prague, he has conducted the productions of Lukáš Hurník’s opera The Angels, Shostakovich’s Antiformalist Rayok / Orango, Rossini´s La Cenerentola, and of his own comic opera Red Mary.
He has written operas (Ida’s Flowers, Red Mary, The Gingerbread House, The Legend of the Misty Mountains), ballets (The Three Musketeers, The Taming of the Shrew), symphonic (Symphony No. 1 “Šumava”, Violin Concerto, Piano Concerto) and chamber pieces, cantatas and songs, as well as incidental music for more than 30 productions for theaters in Prague and elsewhere in the Czech Republic. His works have been performed by the Czech Philharmonic, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the National Theater in Prague, the Latvian National Theater in Riga, and a number of other orchestras and theater companies. He has also created arrangements, including symphonic adaptations of Jaroslav Ježek’s songs and several orchestral suites made up of songs and melodies from Czech films. Kučera has regularly conducted leading Czech orchestras, with whom he has performed or recorded the classical repertoire, as well as more than 100 symphonic pieces by contemporary composers, many of them in premiere. He was a conductor of the Prague Symphony Orchestra (2002–2010) and chief conductor of the Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra (2015–2021). Owing to his musical versatility and promptitude, he has been frequently invited to participate in crossover concerts and projects. Such were, for example, Wanted, the series of scenic performances of Kurt Weill’s songs at Prague’s Lucerna Hall, featuring the mezzo-soprano Dagmar Pecková and the Epoque Orchestra (2017), or the grand stage realization of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass (Ostrava, Prague, Brno, 2018). Kučera has also been active in the domain of opera. At the National Moravian-Silesian Theater in Ostrava he has conducted the productions of Martinů’s Mirandolina and Prokofiev’s The Fiery Angel, and at the F.X. Šalda Theatre in Liberec he presented the world premiere of his opera The Legend of the Misty Mountains (20 May 2022).
Stanislav Vavřínek
is one of the most prominent Czech conductors and has been Chief Conductor of the Czech Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice since 2018.
Having graduated from the Conservatory in Brno where he studied flute and conducting, he continued his education at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Subsequently, he also took master classes with Roberto Benzi in Switzerland, culminating with a concert in which he conducted the Biel Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1994 to 1998, Vavřínek was the principal conductor of the Prague Student Orchestra, which won many awards under his leadership. In 1998, he also conducted the International Youth Orchestra in the final festival concert in Shizuoka, Japan.
As a guest conductor, Vavřínek has collaborated with more than 30 symphonic and chamber orchestras including the Brno Philharmonic, the Prague Philharmonie, the Czech Philharmonic, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic, the Hamburger Symphoniker, and the Gdansk Philharmonic. He has appeared on stages in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Poland and Spain, and Japan. He has also collaborated with a number of outstanding soloists and performed at a number of prominent festivals such as the Shizuoka International Music Festival, the Brno International Music Festival, the Prague Autumn, and the Prague Spring. He has recorded nine CDs with music by Mozart, Haydn, Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Sternwald, Bartók, Shostakovich, and others.
From 1999 to 2008, Vavřínek served as the Chief Conductor of the South Bohemian Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra in České Budějovice before taking up the same position with the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic in Zlín, which he held until 2015. He is a frequent guest conductor of many orchestras both at home and abroad, not only in concerts, but also during various notable extraordinary productions.
From 2006 to 2010, Vavřínek taught at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he was a member of the Department of Conducting.
Jiří Petrdlík
(b. 1977) is appreciated as one of the most respectable conductors of his generation. He studied piano, trombone, and conducting — 1995–2000 at Prague Conservatory, and 2000–2005 at Academy of Performing Arts Prague — with Hynek Farkač, Miroslav Košler, Miriam Němcová, Radomil Eliška, and Tomáš Koutník, and took part in the masterclasses of the New York Philharmonic Principal Conductor Kurt Masur and the BBC Philharmonic Principal Conductor Jiří Bělohlávek. Petrdlík also successfully took part in several competitions, including the Donatella Flick Conductor Competition in London.
Between 2002 and 2009, he was engaged as the Permanent Conductor in the National Theatre Brno and the Music Director and Principal Conductor in the Municipal Theatre Brno. Since 2004 he has been the Permanent Conductor in the Pilsen J. K. Tyl Theatre, where has been appointed as the Artistic Director of the Opera from the 2020 and 2021 season. As a guest, Petrdlík regularly cooperates with many prominent opera theatres in: Warsaw, Cairo, Toulouse, Odessa, Szeged, Messina, Granada, North Texas, and Prague.
In the field of symphonic music, Petrdlík collaborates with the majority of Czech orchestras — Prague Symphony Orchestra, Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, Moravian Philharmonic Olomouc, North Bohemian Philharmonic Teplice, and regularly conducts prominent orchestras in Europe, North America, and Asia.
In the year 2010, Petrdlík started his successful and long cooperation with the Cairo Symphony Orchestra, where he was appointed as the General Artistic Director and Principal Conductor between 2011 and 2015. From 2015 to 2016, he was the Principal Guest Conductor of the Podkarpacka Philharmonic Orchestra in Rzeszów, Poland and a permanent cooperator of PARMA Recordings.
Petrdlík regularly appears with renowned artists Dimitry Ashkenazy, Ivo Kahánek, Karel Košárek, Jan Simon, Eva Urbanová, Ivan Kusnjer, and Soňa Červená in prestigious music festivals — Dvořák’s Prague, Smetana’s Litomyšl, Musik der Meister Vienna, and Lehár Festival Bad Ischl. Beside his conductor career, Petrdlík has developed rich activities as a choirmaster, musicologist, publisher, and pedagogue at Charles University Prague with a Ph.D. degree, and Head of Conducting Department at Jaroslav Ježek Conservatory Prague. He is the Chairman of the Jury of Praga Cantat Competition and also a member of juries of many international competitions. He is a member of the Dvořák Society, and also the Chairman of the Fibich Society. Since 2016, Petrdlík has been the General Manager and Artistic Director of the International Festival of Concert Melodrama.
Petrdlík´s wide repertoire contains compositions of various musical genres, styles, and periods. In the field of discography and recording activities, he often turns his attention to the rarely performed titles, from ancient music to contemporary compositions: Gluck’s Ezio, Beethoven’s Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II and Cantata on the Accession of Emperor Leopold II, Foerster’s Glagolitic Mass, Fibich’s Missa brevis, Martinů’s La Revue Cuisine and Field Mass, a selection of Moniuzsko’s most popular operas, Prokofiev’s Eugene Onegin, and Lukáš’s Homage to the Artists.
The Janáček Philharmonic
is a world-class symphony orchestra based in Ostrava, Czech Republic and an emerging figure on the international performance scene. With over 100 top-level musicians, the orchestra aims to introduce unique, quality repertoire while showcasing their own recognizable sound.
Around the same time that Ostrava was being frequented by composers like Paul Hindemith, Leoš Janáček, Sergei Prokofiev, and Igor Stravinsky, a Radio Orchestra was formed in the city. In 1954, this ensemble was established as the Janáček Philharmonic Ostrava, and began touring two years later. The orchestra has appeared over its history with notable names such as Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Diana Ross, and Joseph Calleja to name a few, and it has remained one of the most notable orchestras in the Czech Republic.
