Interview with the director of the Centre for Ensembles, Contests and Festivals, Jan Simon

It might appear that the orchestra currently finds itself in a period of relative calm and practically a holiday atmosphere. However, the exact opposite is true. For the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (PRSO), May traditionally means the Prague Spring IMF, which in its programme this year reflects two significant cultural events. The first is the 90th anniversary of the launch of broadcasting by Czechoslovak Radio in 1923. Our festival concert is dedicated to that theme, including in terms of the date (18.5), which is linked to events in the tent in Kbely on 18 May 1923. The programme also remembers artists associated with the Umělecká beseda, the foundation of which was 150 years ago this year, which is the second anniversary. The PRSO’s principal conductor Ondrej Lenárd will helm that concert. On June 1 we will also appear at the festival with conductor Libor Pešek, whose 80th birthday is certainly a significant reason for an evening of celebration at the Prague Spring. Between those concerts, the PRSO will open the Janáček May IMF on 20 May, when, under the baton of Zdeněk Mácal, it will perform, among other pieces, Khachaturian’s Third Symphony. Why do I mention that piece? The composer wrote it for 30 trumpets, which I actually can’t imagine in reality… Again this year, the PRSO will be the resident orchestra at the Český Krumlov IMF, where once more we will open, this time with the opera diva Elina Garanča, before the next day performing the Queen Symphony, a project that last year literally drowned in an unexpected torrential downpour. At the close of the Český Krumlov festival, the PRSO will perform alongside the phenomenal Russian violinist Maxim Vengerov, who will split the work of conductor with Leoš Svárovský. But that will be, thank God, after the holidays!

I understand why you’re sighing slightly – after all, between the concerts mentioned you have to whizz off to Japan. What will this year’s tour be like?

Our 10th anniversary! Between 19 June and 8 July, we will perform on the most important concert stages in Japan, from the Suntory Hall in Tokyo to the Osaka Symphony Hall. We will also visit Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka and other cities. Fourteen concerts await the PRSO, under principal conductor Ondrej Lenárd. The tour’s chief soloist will be the world-renowned Russia pianist Stanislav Bunin, but the great Czech cellist Michal Kaňka will also appear with us. The programme mainly consists of Czech “classics” – Smetana’s My Country, Dvořák’s 7th, 8th and 9th symphonies. Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin will also feature.

In the 2013–2014 season the orchestra will surely bear in mind the ongoing celebrations of Czech Radio’s birthday. Are you preparing special projects?

The main one will be a ceremonial concert to mark the end of the celebrations of the 90th anniversary of the establishment of Czech Radio, which we plan for 4 November. It will be an extraordinary concert in our series for season-ticket holders that will launch the Prix Bohemia Radio competition of radio production and will be attended by important representatives of public radio stations from throughout Europe and overseas within the framework of a seminar of directors of musical ensembles that are members of the European Broadcasting Union. What’s more, we’ve put together a very attractive programme of composers working on the border between classical music and jazz. Names like Copland, Bernstein, Vejvoda and Viklický speak for themselves.

What about interesting suggestions from the musicians? They were surely made when the dramaturgy for the coming season was being put together…

It is gratifying that many of those came from the orchestra’s players, from the artistic council. That’s how the idea to not only present but even to initiate works by the young composers Pavlorek and Marek – who have written solo concertos for our players – arose. Our permanent guest conductor Ronald Zollman is a real well of dramaturgical ideas. Of course, when creating the programme we have to look at it from several angles, including the audience’s desire to listen to their favourite pieces and to spend some time in the company of world renowned soloists. At the same time, though, we must bear in mind that the Radio archive has a wealth of great recordings featuring renowned musicians, and that Czech Radio also aims to disseminate new compositions by contemporary artists performed by young or less well-known artists.

The PRSO has a new logo. Are you planning any other innovations?

We’re not planning any fundamental changes in the 2013–2014 season. Nevertheless, in the coming period we have to take into account several factors that we can’t influence. Despite the great accommodation shown by the host of our season-ticket holder concerts, the Czech Philharmonic, we find ourselves facing a growing number of problems with scheduling, which season-ticket holders have surely noticed. I’m talking about the sometimes very uneven distribution of concert dates. There are two causes. The Czech Philharmonic changed its performing plan. Its concerts frequently take place on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and its musicians rehearse on Mondays and Tuesdays on a double schedule. That often deprives us the chance to hold public dress rehearsals. Often it’s not even possible to organize regular dress rehearsals in the mornings. If the programme includes Mahler, Bruckner, Strauss, Tchaikovsky and other composers whose orchestral scores are really difficult, the complications are great, particularly in terms of the physical demands. Anyone who’s ever played an instrument knows the physical and mental exertion involved in playing such a programme in essence twice in a row in a four-hour span. Not to mention what it’s like for soloists and conductors. The second reason is the concert schedule of the PRSO itself, which has obligations towards outside organizers at home and abroad. Planning a season therefore becomes a complicated puzzle resulting in compromise that doesn’t satisfy everybody.

We have therefore decided that from the 2014–2015 season we will prepare two season-ticket holder series. The basic one, which is today at the Rudolfinum, will undergo a certain scaling down in terms of number of concerts and will be predominantly oriented towards the constant values of a world repertoire. The second will be more daring in its dramaturgy. The plan is to present more new faces in the field of interpretative art and to bring excellent compositions newly to life. One reason for that decision is economic. We’re aware that the current season-ticket prices are close to the maximum that many can bear. We don’t want to put prices up and this step provides season-ticket holders with a number of choices. In all probability, the price of the basic series will decrease. We will provide the opportunity to pay in advance for a second series. Naturally, in this connection we’re planning a programme of discounts for those interested in purchasing both, for students and for the handicapped. But we can’t operate at a level where the budgeted price for a concert from the season-ticket holders’ series is below the level of a cinema ticket. Naturally, such a project needs to be thoroughly thought through and prepared, and it must be possible for interested parties to buy season tickets in the classic distribution network. We want to continue to make live culture accessible to the general public in the most acceptable economic dimensions possible. Our task isn’t to make money from music. On the other hand, we can’t get around the boundaries set by external circumstances. Renting the Rudolfinum or another concert hall, printing programmes, the organizational service and many other factors set conditions that we’ve got to deal with in an appropriate manner. And believe me, Czech Radio is doing the maximum to ensure that music performed by the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra remains genuinely accessible to its listeners.

With conclusion of renovation work on the studio spaces at Vinohradská 12 I have to ask about planned recordings, or even CDs featuring music performed by the PRSO.

I admire the members of the PRSO for managing to work in that provisional state for a long time without injury to their artistic, physical or mental health. That certain rootless feeling definitely complicates the lives of those who are, due to the nature of their profession as performing artists, forced to spend a lot of time on the move, travelling. When preparations for concerts or recordings are going on in various studios and rehearsal spaces, it really is terribly difficult. So, with gratitude for the intensified efforts of the current management, in April we again find ourselves at home in a place that six years ago we completely took for granted, the studio complex at Vinohradská 12. It is the greatest gift for us, because the studio is wonderful, incomparable with what we remember from the recent, though in our minds actually distant, past. Some colleagues did not live to see our return to Vinohradská, while others will see the legendary studio for the first time in their lives. The PRSO’s return to Studio 1 naturally promises an intensification of its recording activities. Imminent tasks include finishing the complete recording of the symphonies of Miloslav Kabeláč under conductor Marko Ivanović and a double CD of Leoš Janáček’s works conducted by Tomáš Netopil. And, in cooperation with the label Radioservis, the PRSO is planning to set up a special PRSO series. There are lots of visions and ideas, and I only hope that we succeed in fulfilling at least some of them as well as we can possibly imagine.