Jan Kučera, new conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra

He has had the op.portunity to work with the radio orchestra since 2002 as assistant to the Chief Conductor Vladimír Válek. Together with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and the world-renowned Compagnie Marie Chouinard from Canada, he staged Stravinsky's Rite of Spring at the Sazka Arena in Prague, as part of the Tanec Praha festival. At the same time he won an honourable mention at the conducting competition at the Prague Spring festival. In October 2007 he successfully performed the Dvořák New World Symphony at the Vienna Musikverein with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, and in June this year played the 9th Japanese tour of the radio orchestra.

Jan Kučera (born 1977) has devoted himself to music since the age of five. He studied piano in Prague in the class of Professor Jiří Toman. At the Prague Conservatory he studied conducting with Miriam Němcová, Miroslav Košler and Vladimír Válek (at his graduation concert Kučera performed with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra the premiere of three of his symphonic poems on themes from Czech works of literature - by Ludvík Kundera, Bohumil Hrabal and Jiří Kolář). It was Vladimír Válek who then supervised his conducting studies at the Academy of Performing Arts (graduated 2006).

He completed his composition studies at the Prague Conservatory under Bohuslav Řehoř. In his composing so far he has worked in several genres. He composes symphonic and chamber works, cantatas and songs, and also writes stage music for works by Prague and regional theatres (The Vinohrady Theatre, Rokoko, Český Těšín Theatre and others). His work in the area of arrangements is also prolific - for the 2003 New Year's Eve concert of the Czech Philharmonic he made arrangements of songs by Jaroslav Ježek and songs from Czech films. Nor is he a stranger to jazz; the composer's CD Stav beztíže (Weightlessness) arose out of his close coop.eration with the Epoque Quartet string ensemble and from his link to his own jazz trio.

As a conductor he also works with other leading Czech orchestras; in addition to the classical repertoire he has recorded or performed with them some 40 symphonic works by contemporary composers. These have often been first performances of these works. He has accompanied many outstanding soloists (Václav Hudeček, Eugen Indjic, Jan Simon, Boris Giltburg, Otto Sauter, Martin Válek, Roman Patočka). At the beginning of 2007 he presented Dvořák's Seventh Symphony in Spain with the Murcia Region Symphony Orchestra, recorded a CD of Hans Krása's op.era Brundibár with the Children's Op.era of Prague, subsequently conducting it in the Paris Op.éra de la Bastille.