The PRSO at Prague Spring

By coincidence, the PRSO will again link up with horn player Radek Baborák during the festival, this time in the role of conductor accompanying finalists in the trumpet competition. Concertos by Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Josef Matěj have been set as compulsory compositions.

We have no doubt that once again this year our orchestra will prove an outstanding, empathetic partner for the young interpreters competing. The finalists’ concert will take place on Friday 13 May; the first part begins at 16:00 and the second part gets underway at 20:00.

The PRSO will return to the most important and oldest Czech international music festival on 19 May. This time it will be conducted by the current artistic director of the Warsaw Philharmonic, Jacek Kaspszyk from Poland, while Javier Perianes will play piano; this season the Spanish musician’s busy schedule has included collaborations with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Chicago and Boston symphony orchestras. The programme will include Manuel de Falla’s 1915 concerto for piano Nights in the Gardens of Spain, Bernstein’s Divertimento and Debussy’s La mer.

The PRSO’s third engagement at the Prague Spring will be a special project that takes place, rather unconventionally, as late as 5 June. Two players of the shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute that was originally used by Zen Buddhist monks in mediation, will appear at the New Stage of the National Theatre alongside a player of the biwa, a traditional instrument that is actually a type of lute. The PRSO will be conducted by Marko Ivanović in what will be a meditative and exotic close to another edition of the Prague Spring.

Between 12 May and 5 June this year’s festival will offer an extraordinary mix of tradition and experiment in a total of 50 classical concerts at 17 venues in Prague. It will welcome 98 orchestras and chamber ensembles and soloists from 23 countries around the world.