2024-04-25 10:34:17
Chief conductor of the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra Petr Popelka and chief guest conductor Robert Jindra have extended their engagement until 2026, when the ensemble will celebrate 100 years. Popelka joined the previous year in September, originally he was supposed to stay only until the end of the upcoming season. Jindra, otherwise the current music director of the National Theater Opera and chief conductor of the Košice State Philharmonic, is in a similar situation.
Since taking up the post, Cinderella has already made his debut with, for example, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and also became the chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Despite his busy schedule, he wants to stay with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra.
“Working with the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra is a great joy for me, but also a challenge. I consider the time spent with my colleagues, among whom are a number of my close friends and excellent musicians, very well invested,” he says. Together, they try to raise the artistic level of the ensemble and put the brand of the orchestra in the minds of the listeners. “I think we are doing well. I am sincerely glad that by extending the contract we will have more space to work together,” he adds.
The next season of radio symphonies will bear his signature. Under the baton of Cinderella, the orchestra will start it on September 30 in the Rudolfinum. Leading German soloist Isabelle Faust will come to play Antonín Dvořák’s violin concerto. The winner of the 1993 Paganini competition in Genoa has been using a rare instrument by Antonio Stradivari built in 1704 and bearing the name Sleeping Beauty for almost three decades. Another Czech author in the program will be Jan Klusák, who celebrated his ninetieth birthday a week ago. The program will close with Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5.
Next season, the Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra will feature soloists such as violinist Josef Špaček, singers Olga Bezsmertna and Kateřina Kněžíková, bass-baritone Adam Plachetka and the Dutch piano duo Arthur and Lucas Jussen. “We are also focusing on the year of Czech music that is winding down. The program includes, for example, Bohuslav Martinů’s Second Violin Concerto, Dvořák’s Polednica or compositions by Jan Novák and Josef Suk. After a long time, we will also present the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,” says Popelka, for whom this will be the third season at the head of the radio symphonies.
Principal guest conductor Robert Jindra will conduct the three programs. A novelty will be the concert series located in the Municipal House. Here, on December 22nd, 1000 amateur and professional singers will gather for a concert called One Thousand Voices. Together they will pay tribute to Czech composers. It will be the largest choral event for the Year of Czech Music.
Robert Jindra is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Radio Orchestra. | Photo: Michal Fanta
In addition to the Municipal House, the orchestra will continue to perform in the Rudolfinum, the Center for Contemporary Art Dox and the Bethlehem Chapel. Pianist Jan Bartoš will perform there in September with Antonín Rejcha’s Piano Concerto under the direction of conductor Vojtěch Spurný.
In the multifunctional Dox Contemporary Art Centre, the radio symphonists are preparing two concerts – with Czech gospel organist Ondřej Pivec and his band Kennedy Administration, and with instrumentalists and composers Marcel Bárta and Jakub Zitek.
Also in the next season, chamber concerts will be held in Studio 1, which will also welcome interested parties who want to experience an open rehearsal. Visitors will be able to sit directly among the members of the orchestra and see the radio symphonists, for example, during preparations for a trip to the Elbe Philharmonic in Hamburg, which will take place on November 6.